The colour of the traditional baggy green cap will be used on Australia's one-day uniforms this summer, but another icon tone has been dumped to allow the change. Gold shirts and trousers have been sent to the opportunity shops after a sun-fading reign as the dominant hue in home series fashion.

Greg Chappell's 1980-81 teams staged the "canary yellow" pyjama revolution and Australian sides have stuck with variations of it as the predominant colour through Southern Cross stars and horizontal stripes, thunderbolts striking over Craig McDermott's chest in 1992-93 and the Spiderman style of 2003-04. In this summer's currently name-less tri-series the only gold patches will belong to the players' names and numbers, the stars on the Southern Cross logo and the manufacturer's stripes on the shoulders.

When the squad uses the kit for the first time against England on January 12, the Australians will show off the same dominant colour as Bangladesh, South Africa, Pakistan and Kenya, but it's unlikely the rest of the world's teams will be green with envy. At the first showing the kit appears to have been picked up from surplus stock of army-style casual gear during the squad's pre-season boot camp.

Designed in consultation with the players, the new-age uniforms include fabric colour-matching to an original baggy green cap, no collar, a "sun protection neck line" and a "mesh zip neck". "It feels great," Ricky Ponting told AAP at the SCG launch. "It's very light-weight. In the conditions we play in around the world it's important that you have the right technology and materials in your shirt.

"The guys won't have to be flicking their collars right up through the game. The zip at the front will enable the collar to stay up and keep the sun off the back of our necks, which is obviously very important."

Player kits change as often as venues for spring fashion parades and the view of Alan Barnes, the former Australian Cricket Board secretary, becomes more outdated every season. "Pardon me," he said during the original forays into non-white fashion, "but I've always thought people watched cricket for the play, not the décor."

This season Cricket Australia, the swankier, 21st century version of the ACB, is using the uniform in money-making and patriotic schemes - it wants to ensure the local crowd is not out-cheered or out-numbered by England fans during the Ashes. As part of CA's "Go Off in Green and Gold" campaign, which was also launched today, every person who buys a replica shirt will have the opportunity to stand in one of three huge photos with the Australian team in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.