England Cricket Overseas Tour Schedule 2026/27

The england cricket overseas tour schedule 2026 27 is two full tours and one one-off Test spread across four months and three continents' worth of time zones: eight white-ball matches in Australia through November, three Tests and three one-day internationals in South Africa across Christmas and New Year, and then a return to Melbourne in March 2027 for a single Test staged to mark 150 years since the first one. Twenty-one days of international cricket in all, and — mercifully for anyone in Britain — only about a third of it needs an alarm clock.

Below is the whole winter in one table, then each leg in detail, then the practical business of watching it from the United Kingdom, which this winter is a genuinely open question rather than a formality.

The full 2026/27 winter at a glance

All UK times are GMT. Britain is on Greenwich Mean Time from Sunday 25 October 2026 until Sunday 28 March 2027, so no clock change interrupts the winter at the British end.

Fixture	Date	Venue	City	UK start (GMT)
1st ODI v Australia	Fri 13 Nov 2026	Optus Stadium	Perth	03:30
2nd ODI v Australia	Sun 15 Nov 2026	Adelaide Oval	Adelaide	03:30
3rd ODI v Australia	Wed 18 Nov 2026	Bellerive Oval	Hobart	03:30
1st T20I v Australia	Sat 21 Nov 2026	Melbourne Cricket Ground	Melbourne	08:15
2nd T20I v Australia	Tue 24 Nov 2026	People First Stadium	Gold Coast	08:15
3rd T20I v Australia	Fri 27 Nov 2026	The Gabba	Brisbane	08:15
4th T20I v Australia	Sun 29 Nov 2026	Sydney Cricket Ground	Sydney	08:15
5th T20I v Australia	Wed 2 Dec 2026	Manuka Oval	Canberra	08:15
1st Test v South Africa	Thu 17 – Mon 21 Dec 2026	The Wanderers	Johannesburg	08:00
2nd Test v South Africa	Sat 26 – Wed 30 Dec 2026	SuperSport Park	Centurion	08:00
3rd Test v South Africa	Sun 3 – Thu 7 Jan 2027	Newlands	Cape Town	08:00
1st ODI v South Africa	Sun 10 Jan 2027	Boland Park	Paarl	08:00
2nd ODI v South Africa	Wed 13 Jan 2027	Mangaung Oval	Bloemfontein	11:30
3rd ODI v South Africa	Fri 15 Jan 2027	Mangaung Oval	Bloemfontein	11:30
150th Anniversary Test	Thu 11 – Mon 15 Mar 2027	Melbourne Cricket Ground	Melbourne	03:00

Two caveats before anyone books time off. Test start times in South Africa were not published with the fixture announcement; the 08:00 GMT figures assume the long-standing 10:00 local convention, and should be checked with Cricket South Africa nearer the time. And a Twenty20 series in South Africa that was originally pencilled into this window has been withdrawn over scheduling conflicts, with both boards saying they hope to reschedule it — so treat any advertised England T20 international in South Africa this winter as unconfirmed until a governing body says otherwise.

Australia, November: eight matches in twenty days

This is a white-ball tour only. There is no Ashes series in it, which makes it an unusual visit to Australia by recent standards — three one-day internationals and five Twenty20s crammed into twenty days across seven cities, with no red-ball cricket at all until March.

The one-day leg opens in Perth on Friday 13 November, moves to Adelaide two days later and finishes at Bellerive in Hobart on the 18th. Every one of the three begins at 03:30 GMT, because the staggered local starts of 11:30 in Perth, 14:00 in Adelaide and 14:30 in Hobart are deliberately calibrated to land on a single Australian broadcast slot — and Australia's east-west spread happens to make that a single British slot too. The full breakdown, including which of the three is worth the alarm, is in our ODI leg schedule, and the opening match at Optus Stadium gets its own Perth preview.

The Twenty20 leg is the gift. All five matches start at 08:15 GMT, which is British breakfast time, and two of them fall at the weekend — the MCG opener on Saturday 21 November and the Sydney Cricket Ground match on Sunday 29 November. Those two are the ones to protect in a diary. The full list, the venues and the reason Queensland's refusal to observe daylight saving keeps the whole series on one clock are covered in our T20 leg schedule, with individual guides to the MCG opener and the SCG fixture.

What the tour is for is straightforward enough: it is the last substantial block of white-ball cricket against a top-tier opponent before the next fifty-over World Cup cycle reaches its business end, and it is being played in the conditions England will not encounter again until they return.

South Africa, December and January: the Christmas Tests

The South African leg is the serious one, and for a British audience it is also by some distance the easiest overseas tour to follow. South Africa runs two hours ahead of the United Kingdom and observes no daylight saving, so a Test day starting at ten o'clock in Johannesburg begins at eight in the morning at home and is finished by mid-afternoon. You can watch a full day's Test cricket and still have your evening.

Three Tests: the Wanderers in Johannesburg from 17 December, SuperSport Park at Centurion from Boxing Day, and Newlands in Cape Town from 3 January. That is a Boxing Day Test and a New Year's Test in consecutive fixtures against the reigning World Test Championship holders, staged at two of the more atmospheric grounds in the game — Centurion's grass banks and Table Mountain over the Newlands boundary being the two images the tour will be sold on.

It matters competitively as well. This series closes out both sides' 2025-27 World Test Championship campaign, which means the Newlands Test in the first week of January could be a straight elimination match for a place in the following summer's final. Few England away series have carried that kind of weight into their last day.

The one-day leg follows in the second week of January: Paarl on the 10th, then two day-nighters at Bloemfontein on the 13th and 15th. The Boland Park match starts at 08:00 GMT; the two Bloemfontein floodlit games start at 11:30 GMT, which makes them the most conveniently timed England away matches of the entire winter. The complete leg, venue by venue, is in our South Africa tour schedule, and the Centurion fixture has its own Boxing Day Test guide.

For the longer context of what these two sides have meant to each other since readmission, see our England and South Africa rivalry piece.

March 2027: the 150th Anniversary Test at the MCG

The winter has an epilogue. England return to Melbourne for a single Test from Thursday 11 to Monday 15 March 2027, staged to mark 150 years since the first Test match was played on the same ground in March 1877. It is scheduled as a day-night fixture with a 14:00 AEDT start, which puts it at 03:00 GMT for British viewers — an overnight watch, with the final session running through the British morning.

A one-off Test with a pink ball, at the ground where the format began, on the anniversary of the original, is the kind of occasion that tends to attract a substantial travelling contingent. It sits outside both of the winter's tour blocks and outside the World Test Championship cycle that ends in South Africa, which makes it something closer to an exhibition with a hundred and fifty years of weight behind it. It is also worth noting for anyone planning: the following English summer is an Ashes summer, with Australia touring for five Tests from mid-June 2027.

Watching it from the UK: an unusually open question

This is the part of the winter nobody can currently answer with confidence, and it is better to say so than to guess.

Television rights for England's away tours belong to the home board, not the ECB, which is why coverage of an overseas winter can move between British broadcasters from one series to the next. For the 2026-27 winter, both host boards have found the United Kingdom market harder than usual.

South Africa is the striking case. Sky Sports, which had carried England's tours there for roughly three decades, did not renew its agreement with Cricket South Africa, and as of August 2026 no United Kingdom broadcaster had been confirmed for the Test or one-day legs. TNT Sports has been linked but has not committed. Cricket South Africa has publicly said it expects to conclude a deal and is in talks with other parties. On past form these series do get picked up, sometimes late — but if you are planning to watch, check who holds the rights before Christmas rather than assuming.

Australia has been a slower sale than usual too. TNT Sports held exclusive United Kingdom rights to internationals staged in Australia across the previous season, streaming them on discovery+ alongside its linear channels. Whether that extends into the 2026-27 Australian summer should be confirmed with Cricket Australia or the broadcaster.

Radio is the reliable option. The BBC's audio agreement with Cricket Australia covers England's away tours through the 2026-27 season, which on past form means ball-by-ball commentary on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra and BBC Sounds, free at the point of use. For a 03:30 start, a radio is arguably the better companion anyway — it does not require you to look at it. Our guide to watching cricket in the UK sets out how the rights landscape divides up and why so little cricket reaches free-to-air television.

One practical warning that applies to the whole winter. The Australian matches finish in the middle of the British morning and the South African ones in the middle of the British afternoon. Results will land while you are at work. If you intend to watch a recording, mute your notifications the night before.

Which fixtures are worth the sleep

If you are going to commit to a handful rather than all twenty-one days, these are the ones with the best ratio of significance to inconvenience.

Pick	Date	UK start	Why
1st T20I, MCG	Sat 21 Nov 2026	08:15	Weekend, breakfast time, the biggest ground on the tour
4th T20I, SCG	Sun 29 Nov 2026	08:15	Sunday morning, series likely still alive
2nd Test, Centurion	From Sat 26 Dec 2026	08:00	A Boxing Day Test that starts as you finish breakfast
3rd Test, Newlands	From Sun 3 Jan 2027	08:00	Possible World Test Championship decider
3rd ODI, Bloemfontein	Fri 15 Jan 2027	11:30	The most civilised start time of the winter

The two to think hard about are the Perth one-day international, which is a Friday and therefore survivable for anyone able to work from home, and the March Test at Melbourne, which at 03:00 GMT is the winter's only genuine all-nighter.

Travelling out: what a supporter should know

Both tours are well-served by the organised travel trade, and both have an obvious sweet spot.

For Australia, the compressed November block is unusually easy to build a trip around: eight matches in twenty days means a fortnight covers most of the tour, and the Melbourne–Sydney–Canberra sequence at the end is a straightforward domestic itinerary. November is late spring in the southern states — pleasant in Melbourne and Sydney, genuinely hot in Perth and Brisbane.

For South Africa, the Christmas and New Year Tests are the draw and also the constraint, because Cape Town over New Year is the country's peak domestic holiday period and accommodation prices reflect it. Book Newlands accommodation early or stay outside the city. Johannesburg in December is high summer with afternoon thunderstorms that regularly cost sessions, and Centurion is much the same.

Ticketing for both tours runs through the home boards rather than the ECB, and general sale for overseas Tests is typically far easier than for the equivalent fixture in England. The wider question of how England's players are contracted and managed across a winter of this length — rest rotation, red-ball and white-ball squads, who tours both legs — is covered in central contracts and winter tours.

England's women have a separate winter, with the ICC Women's Champions Trophy scheduled in Sri Lanka across the second half of February 2027 as their major overseas commitment of the period.

Frequently asked questions

Where does England tour in the 2026/27 winter?

Australia in November and early December for three one-day internationals and five Twenty20 internationals, then South Africa from mid-December to mid-January for three Tests and three one-day internationals. A one-off 150th Anniversary Test follows at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in March 2027.

What time do England's matches in Australia start in the UK?

The three one-day internationals all start at 03:30 GMT. All five Twenty20 internationals start at 08:15 GMT, which is British breakfast time and by far the most watchable slot of the tour.

What time do the South Africa Tests start in the UK?

South Africa is two hours ahead of the United Kingdom and does not use daylight saving, so a 10:00 local start is 08:00 GMT. Exact start times were not published in the fixture announcement, so confirm with Cricket South Africa before making plans.

Is England's tour of South Africa on TV in the UK?

Not confirmed. Sky Sports did not renew its agreement with Cricket South Africa and, as of August 2026, no United Kingdom broadcaster had been announced for the series. Cricket South Africa says it expects to reach a deal. BBC radio commentary is the safer assumption.

Does England play a Boxing Day Test in 2026?

Yes — the second Test against South Africa begins at SuperSport Park in Centurion on Saturday 26 December 2026. The third Test then starts at Newlands in Cape Town on 3 January 2027, giving England both a Boxing Day and a New Year's Test.

Is there an Ashes series in the 2026/27 winter?

No. The Australian leg is white-ball only. The next Ashes series is at home in England across the 2027 summer, with the one-off 150th Anniversary Test at Melbourne in March 2027 sitting outside it.

Keeping track through the winter

The shape of the england cricket overseas tour schedule 2026 27 is easy enough to hold in your head: Australia at breakfast in November, South Africa over Christmas at eight in the morning, and one long night in Melbourne in March. Everything in between is detail, and most of it is on the individual match and series pages linked above.

Squads are typically named four to six weeks before each leg departs, so expect the Australia party in early October and the South Africa Test squad in November. Start times, broadcast arrangements and any restored Twenty20 fixtures should be confirmed with the ECB, Cricket Australia or Cricket South Africa as the dates approach. The England cricket hub tracks the tours as they happen, and cricket in England covers the domestic season that resumes in April.