The Test, Prime Video Sport’s hit documentary series which charts the highs and lows of the Australian national test cricket team, is back. Here’s what we know about the series so far.
For many Australian cricket fans, The Test is the perfect series. Just about every Australian kid wants to don the ‘baggy green’, and many do, in their heads, in their front yard, or in the backyard.
And the series offers a closer look into the Australian cricket team’s inner sanctum. It’s unprecedented access into what life on tour looks like some of Australian sport’s most high profile heroes.
The series’ first two seasons have been loaded with drama and controversy.
Season one follows the side in the 18 months following the infamous 2018 ball tampering scandal involving David Warner, Steve Smith, and Cameron Bancroft, and includes a famous 2019 Ashes series where Smith was at his imperious best.
The next season followed the side in late 2021 and early 2022 as both Tim Paine, then skipper of the national side, is dismissed for misconduct, and Justin Langer, then coach of the side, departs following player unrest.
While both season’s are tough acts to follow, fans will be waiting with great anticipated to see what The Test season 3 could possibly dish up?
When will The Test season 3 be released?
TBC
While no specific date has been confirmed by Prime Video Sport, the streaming service confirmed a release date for the series will be some time next year.
Given the enthralling nature of both the 2023 Ashes series and the ICC World Test Championship, as well as undoubtedly countless hours of player, coach, and media interviews conducted to provide additional colour to the series, fans may have to wait until early-to-mid 2024 to re-live a successful year for Cricket Australia.
What will The Test season 3 focus on?
-The Ashes, 2023
-World Test Championship Final, 2023
It’s no secret 2023 has been wildly successful, leaving the series with plenty of action to chose from.
This time around, the Test will be focusing on both the 2023 ICC World Test Championship, where the Aussies beat intense rival, a star-studded outfit, India, as well as the explosive, highly anticipated, 2023 Ashes series.
Built up as ‘Bazball’, England’s faux-revolutionary style of cricketing, versus the more traditional manner with which the Australian side went about their business, the series is arguably the greatest instalment of the Ashes.
A topsy-turvy series, the 2023 edition of cricket’s fiercest rivalry pitted two immense sides against each other, saw players crumble or excel with pressure, players retire, and an incredibly controversial, highly divisive dismissal of England’s Jonny Bairstow.
Cricket fans will be chomping at the bit to latch their eyes on the exclusive and mouth-watering behind-the-scenes footage The Test season 3 will provide.
“The third season of The Test captures the gripping tussle between Australia and India at the World Test
Championship Final, and the extraordinary behind-the-scenes drama of the 2023 Ashes in England,”
Richard Ostroff, head of broadcasting and production at Cricket Australia, explained.
He touched on a major attraction of the series being the fact is allows “cricket fans in Australia and across the world [to] ride all the emotions and tight contests as our best players battle it out on the biggest stages of all.”
“This series will be the best yet,” he insisted.
Key storylines for The Test Season 3
With many viewing the 2023 Ashes as rivalling the 2005 series for entertainment, The Test season 3 directors Adrian Brown and Sheldon Wynee, will have plenty of footage and plots to choose from.
A crucial element of the 2023 Ashes series was the ‘Bazball’ phenomenon.
Recently we’ve seen short snippets of how Australian cricket stars, such as batsman Marnus Labuschagne, view England’s tactics and the often remarkable over exaggeration of them.
It would be a missed opportunity if the series fails to explore Australia’s cricketing stars’ thoughts on ‘Bazball’, and either fuel or extinguish the fire surrounding England’s tactics.
Jonny Bairstow’s fair, yet highly controversial, run out was the story of the 2023 Ashes. It dominated headlines, caused Piers Morgan to have multiple public breakdowns, and almost destroyed international relations between Australia and England.
To put it lightly, it was the biggest cricketing story of the past year. A storm in a teacup, overblown by a nation upset at their cricketing inferiority searching for any and every reason to award itself a series it didn’t deserve to win.
A crucial turning point in both the Ashes, and the lesser known moral Ashes, cricket fans will be eagerly waiting for unprecedented access to the minds and opinions of those who were there, living the decision and its aftermath first hand.
You literally cannot script it.
