This summer, like us, Steve Smith, Dave Warner and Darren Lehmann will be watching the Australian cricket team, led by wicketkeeper captain (and Tasmania's reserve gloveman) Tim Paine and most likely Justin Langer as coach, play for the Border-Gavaskar trophy live and free on the Seven Network. Huh? Next thing they'll be playing Test cricket in Canberra, or across the Swan River from the WACA!

So when we talk about normalcy returning to Australian cricket, evidently we're only referring to the barest vestiges of it.

The national game enters its second consecutive home season in very rough reputational shape. Last year, the Ashes series was played against the backdrop of Cricket Australia's comically botched pay negotiations with the players.

Tim Worner, James Sutherland and Patrick Delany were all smiles at the cricket rights deal, but the sponsors have concerns. Joel Carrett

This year, the source of sheepishness is twofold. First, the public's reserves of patience and affection for those players – the over-indulged men, at least – are all but exhausted after Australia engaged in premeditated ball-tampering last month in South Africa; and given lingering suspicion this incidence of cheating wasn't isolated. Secondly, the intersection of sport and television as Australians have understood it for more than 40 years has transubstantiated before our eyes in the space of a toxic fortnight. Not since the TV guide migrated online have we all been in such need of it.

Some will argue Tennis Australia and Nine Entertainment Co started it. Others will argue that, by their last fishy rights deal struck in 2013, Harold Mitchell and Seven West Media forced the Australian Open elsewhere. Either way, come September, for the first time, Australians can no longer watch Australia's One Day or Twenty20 Internationals played in Australia on free-to-air television – with that (effectively siphoned) privilege going to the fewer than 30 per cent of Australian households subscribed to pay television.