Plenty to pontificate about or just sit back and watch as the various spectacles unfold on our screens or up close and personal in the stands. And that's just the home fixtures. Australia are also contesting the Under-19 World Cup now in South Africa against the likes of Nigeria and Japan. Loading The absence of the men’s national team on home soil at this time of year is partly a quirk of India’s need to rule the cricket empire, but karma has suggested (on the Mumbai result at least) that India’s playing dominance on their own patch is waning. No matter what the disruption to the "normal" Australian summer, the financial gains for CA will be substantive and that should help the bottom line and support the sport at the foundation level. After all, it is the middle of the subcontinent cricket season as well, a time when those fans expect to see their own stars in action. The global village of cricket has no summer or winter these days, nor does it have the geographical boundaries within which the British empire spread the seed. The crammed international summer will come to a climax at the MCG on March 8 with the final of the Women’s T20 World Cup.

Australia, as titleholders and a team very much in form and full of outstanding players, will be expecting to be there. England want to copy their famous Lord's victory of 2017 (albeit in 50-over style) when the stands were packed to capacity, but their ageing stars have been waning in recent times. Perhaps Thailand will rejoice in their finest moment by coming from the qualifiers at a cold and windy Scottish club ground in front of a hundred or so to the final at the east Melbourne coliseum in front of 90,000. Now that would be a story! Thailand beat Papua New Guinea in the final play-off match to get into the World Cup. Two teams from south Asia battling each other and frostbite in Forfarshire for a shot at immortality. I can see a screenplay forming ... Australia's Alex Blackwell will join players from nine other countries representing the Fairbreak organisation against a Bradman Foundation team at Bradman Oval on February 22. Credit:Chris Hopkins A World Cup in any sport shapes its relevance around the concept of inclusivity: the smallest country gets a crack at the Leviathans. There is always hope of an upset and courageous loses can be magnificent. The main issue with Thailand reaching the World Cup is that only 10 countries are competing at a time when women’s cricket is blossoming. The ICC has seriously missed a trick with this one. The shortest format is easiest to organise and the expenses are relatively light, yet the upside in exposure and development in the associate countries is enormous.

Even Ireland and Scotland don’t get a gig, when the inclusion of Vanuatu and PNG would be a terrific fillip for the Pacific game. Fortunately, the Fairbreak organisation (an international advocate for gender equality) has taken up the cudgel to promote opportunity through the sport in a number of the forgotten cricket-playing countries. As an adjunct to the World Cup, a Fairbreak team will play the first match against a Bradman Foundation team at Bradman Oval on February 22. The Fairbreak team will be comprised of players from 10 different countries and include arguably Australia’s finest player Alex Blackwell, and representatives from Vanuatu, the Netherlands, Botswana, Singapore, the US, England, Hong Kong and Ireland. The match will be live-streamed (http://fairbreak.ion-sport.com) and there will be an early match against a first SCG XI women’s team. The main game starts at 2.30pm and the pipe opener is at 10.30am. Middle-order batter and German gynecologist Stephanie Frohnmeyer played in a recent Fairbreak match in Britain before jumping on a flight back to Munich to deliver four babies. Having made those deliveries, she returned two days later to face some more deliveries on the field. The dedication and love of the game is unparalleled from these women. The WBBL is really a domestic competition but would be well served by including players from associate or affiliate countries on their rosters. The result is a win-win for the franchises, giving women who otherwise don’t get an opportunity the chance and spreading the game globally without leaving home shores.

Cricket is growing through central Africa, especially in Rwanda, Botswana, Uganda and Tanzania, countries that border the Great Rift Valley and Lake Victoria. The teams travel on rough roads for many hours to play fiercely contested tournaments. The MCC charity program has helped fund the building of a beautiful ground in the Rwandan capital, Gahanga Stadium, the "Lord's of East

Africa", with turf practice pitches on the outskirts of Kigali looking over to the emerald Murinja Hills. Following the genocide of the mid-1990s, the country is peaceful and ordered and majority-run by women who see cricket as a powerful community sport. Imagine if Rwanda played a match at the WACA (just as the unlikely contest of Thailand versus the West Indies will make history at that ground on February 22). Nigeria and Kenya have had longer cricket traditions (Nigeria have qualified for the current men's Under-19 World Cup and Kenya were famously the first non-Test playing nation to make the World Cup semi-finals in 2003). Hong Kong have produced some excellent players, such a Mariko Hill, who will be in the Fairbreak team at Bradman Oval, but perhaps the most exciting development in Asian cricket is the rise of China. That country will host the 2022 Asian games, of which cricket is a participant and the Chinese are keen for a medal.