Summer's coming - but the West Indies aren't

Australia's four-yearly cycle of hosting Test tours by West Indian teams has been broken, following the announcement that New Zealand and Pakistan will be next summer's main visitors. The strategic shift in mindset means that England is now the last remaining country guaranteed a Test series in Australia every four years.

In another significant development the VB triangular one-day series, now entering its 26th year, will be the briefest on record. Each team will play only six preliminary matches, instead of the usual eight, with the competition wrapped up in a little over three weeks.

Insatiable cricket watchers need not despair, however; Australia will battle New Zealand for a new prize, the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy, which is to become an annual neighbourhood shootout of three one-day games. New Zealand will host it the following year.

"The Chappell-Hadlee Trophy will become as eagerly anticipated as other great annual sporting events such as the Bledisloe Cup," predicted New Zealand Cricket's chief executive Martin Snedden. Said James Sutherland, his Australian counterpart: "Chappells and Hadlees have been involved in a lot of the trans-Tasman cricket rivalry that goes back 50 years but, in particular, goes back to the start of one-day international cricket 30 years ago."

Almost as ancient is the custom of Caribbean teams coming to Australia at least every four years. Although West Indies will later join Australia and Pakistan for the VB Series, next summer's five Tests will be split between New Zealand (two) and Pakistan (three). Thus ends a tradition that began with Clive Lloyd's raw but soon-to-be-ravishing West Indians of 1975-76.

During those years the two teams have contested some powerhouse series, both gripping (1981-82, 1992-93, 1996-97) and one-sided (1975-76, 1979-80, 1984-85, 1988-89, 2000-01). Never has it been remotely boring. The West Indies' absence next summer is officially an outcome of the undulating global timetable, a clash of fixtures, and supposedly has nothing to do with their dwindling box-office appeal. But you'd love to be a fly on the Cricket Australia wall. They were whitewashed 5-0 under Jimmy Adams in 2000-01, losing twice by an innings and twice inside three days. Wisden Australia called it a tour of "unrelenting misery": their batting was "feeble in the extreme", their bowlers "never looked consistently menacing" and the fielding was "sloppily amateurish."

Thrashed 3-0 by England recently, things are hardly looking up. They will return in 2005-06, along with South Africa, for three Tests - including one at Hobart's Bellerive Oval - which was lopped off the calendar today for the third summer in a row. The Kiwis, meanwhile, are back for the second time in four years. It is a sign of strange times when New Zealand, traditionally the uncharismatic ducklings of world cricket, are considered a more mouthwatering prospect than West Indies.

The decision to trim a little flab off the VB Series is equally intriguing. Only 341,426 spectators attended last summer's tournament - the third-smallest crowds ever and umpteen grandstands shy of the 553,730 who went along in the 1982-83 heyday of the old Benson & Hedges World Series Cup.

Administrators have brainstormed tirelessly over ways to brighten up the competition: we've endured bonus-point systems, pop musical accompaniments, roped-in boundaries, draconian wide and bouncer laws, two Australian sides and endless costume changes. Perhaps they have fiddled too much; perhaps the tournament's freewheeling, wild-swinging spontaneity got lost somewhere. Ultimately there's only so much you can do with a limited, and limited-overs, product.