Ashes

Hussey, known as ‘Mr Cricket’ for his technical expertise, will also work with Australia during the LA 2028 Olympics.

Mike Hussey was appointed on Friday as a consultant coach to the Australian team for next year’s blockbuster Ashes series against England and the 2027 Cricket World Cup.

The former Australian batsman revealed in August that England’s new red-ball coach, Stephen Fleming, had informally approached him to be their Test batting mentor.

But the 51-year-old turned down the audacious offer and has instead committed to helping his home nation arrest a batting crisis, highlighted by their recent 2-1 Test series defeat in South Africa.

Hussey, known as “Mr Cricket” for his technical expertise, will also provide coaching assistance during this month’s home T20 series against England and the subsequent four-Test series against New Zealand.

He will additionally work with Australia during the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, where cricket is on the agenda, and the T20 World Cup in 2028.

“I am extremely excited about being a part of the team in a more formal and meaningful role in the coming years,” said Hussey, who played more than 300 matches for Australia across all formats.

“This team has achieved so much in recent times, to which I hope I can add value to the coaching and playing groups ahead of what will be an exciting and challenging period.”

Hussey has extensive experience as a coach, including with both Australia and England.

He was part of England’s coaching setup when they won the T20 World Cup in 2022 and was the Chennai Super Kings’ longtime batting coach under Fleming in the Indian Premier League. He also led Welsh Fire in this year’s Hundred.

“Mike has been a highly valued part of our staff in the past and brings a considerable skill set which is complementary to the coaches and players,” said Australian head coach Andrew McDonald.

“Not only is his expertise as a player and coach across multiple formats, competitions, countries invaluable, so are his qualities as a person.”

In a world with increasingly volatile economics and changing consumer habits, broadcasting live sport has been one of the more reliable ways for companies to generate revenue.

And live sport – and entertainment – is one of the few industries whose financial success is unlikely to be significantly compromised by artificial intelligence in the coming years.

That means more and more companies have taken an interest in buying the rights to show sports events, which means more TV subscriptions than ever before are necessary for fans wanting to watch all of the action.

A football fan in the UK, for example, must subscribe to Sky Sports, TNT Sports, Amazon Prime and Premier Sports, if they want to watch all of the matches across the Premier League, Champions League and Scottish Premiership.

And they must pay for an annual TV licence to watch other matches on the BBC and ITV.

Without taking advantage of special offers, other sports can require even more subscriptions and even more money.

“It certainly helps when you can say to a fan that they only need to buy one subscription to see everything in one sport,” says Pete Oliver, CEO of growth markets for DAZN, a global sports streaming service.

“If a sport is very fragmented, we would say it’s not going to be a great proposition for the fan [for us to be involved], and it’s probably not going to be a great commercial prospect for us.

“The cost of entertainment [subscriptions] generally will increase over time.

“There is natural inflation in the market, there is a lot of competition for sports rights, the athletes want to be paid more money, and the leagues want to do what is right for them, and if they can get somebody to pay more for the content, they will”