General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

The Test: A New Era for Australia's Team

The Test: A New Era for Australia's Team is an Australian sports docuseries on Prime Video that follows the Australian Men's Cricket Team from the fallout of the 2018 ball-tampering scandal, known as Sandpapergate, through its efforts to rebuild its reputation, culture, and standing in world cricket.¹ The first season premiered on March 12, 2020, and the series has since run for three seasons.²

Key fact	Detail
Subject	Behind-the-scenes access to the Australian Men's Cricket Team after the 2018 "sandpaper scandal"¹
Platform	Prime Video, in Australia and more than 200 countries and territories³
Season 1	March 12, 2020; 8 episodes of about 60 minutes¹
Season 2	January 13, 2023; 4 episodes of 45 minutes⁴
Season 3	May 24, 2024; 3 episodes covering the 2023 tour of England⁵
Director	Adrian Brown (seasons 1–3), with Sheldon Wynne co-directing seasons 2 and 3¹^•⁴
Production companies	Cricket Australia Productions and Whooshka Media; Amazon MGM Studios joined from season 2¹^•⁴

Spoilers

Season 1 (2020)

The eight-part first season covers roughly 18 months, from the Cape Town fallout to the retention of the Ashes at the end of the 2019 English summer.¹⁰ Its episodes trace the home Test series against India led by Virat Kohli, limited-overs tours including the one-day series in India, the return of the banned Smith and Warner, the 2019 World Cup campaign in which Australia reached the semi-finals, and the Ashes series against England.¹¹^•⁹

The access was unusual for cricket. Camera crews filmed inside dressing rooms and team meetings, spaces normally closed to outsiders, and the footage was drawn from thousands of hours shot by cinematographer Andre Mauger and broadcasters.¹⁰^•¹² Langer himself described watching the finished series as "very confronting," saying "that's actually what happens in the Australian dressing room."¹²

The season launched amid the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 and became the most watched show on Amazon Prime Video Australia in March and April 2020.¹³^•¹⁴ Cricket Australia's annual report states that no Australian sports documentary had appeared on Amazon Prime Video before it, and that world cricket had never seen a documentary like it.¹⁵

Season 2 (2023)

The second season, reduced to four episodes of 45 minutes, covers the 2021–22 season under a new leadership group after the exits of captain Tim Paine, following a sexting scandal, and coach Justin Langer, who declined a six-month contract extension after leading the team to the T20 World Cup title and a 4–0 Ashes win at home.⁴^•¹⁶ Pat Cummins, appointed captain weeks before the 2021–22 Ashes, is the season's central figure as the team tours Pakistan, where the two sides met in Tests for the first time in 24 years, and Sri Lanka.¹⁷^•¹⁸

Reviewers noted the season's continued access to players and the locker room, while some fans judged it closer to a highlights package than the first season's depth.¹⁹

Season 3 (2024)

The third season, three episodes released together on May 24, 2024, follows Australia's 2023 tour of England: the World Test Championship Final against India at the Oval, which Australia won, and the Ashes series that followed.⁵^•²⁰ The filming method stayed deliberately small: a single cameraman with hidden microphones, so that, in Cummins' words, "we're never aware of the camera."²¹ The season captures the Lord's Test stumping of Jonny Bairstow and its aftermath, Nathan Lyon batting on a torn calf, and Mitch Marsh's 102-ball century at Headingley, the fastest by an Australian in England since Victor Trumper's 95-ball hundred in 1902.²¹

Background: the scandal the series opens with

The series begins from the 2018 ball-tampering incident at Newlands in Cape Town, in which Australian batter Cameron Bancroft was caught on camera using sandpaper to rough up the ball during the third Test against South Africa.⁶ Captain Steve Smith, vice-captain David Warner, and Bancroft received bans, and coach Darren Lehmann resigned before the team left South Africa.⁷^•⁶ Six months afterward, a report from an ethics committee found that institutional arrogance within Cricket Australia had fostered conditions that allowed cheating to thrive.⁸

Into this vacuum came newly appointed coach Justin Langer and new Test captain Tim Paine, and the documentary follows the team from that starting point.⁹ Amazon announced the series in November 2019, promising Prime members access inside the team "immediately following the 2018 ball tampering incident as they regroup, reflect and rebuild to retain the 2019 Ashes Urn on English soil for the first time in 18 years."³

Reception and criticism

The series drew a broadly positive critical response. Reviewers praised the unprecedented dressing-room access and the human side of the players; the Sydney Morning Herald's headline question, "Doco or propaganda?", captured the recurring objection that a documentary signed off by Cricket Australia functions partly as public relations for the governing body.²² Wisden noted that the series was praised for showing a more human side to the Australian players while being criticized for its near-total avoidance of the ball-tampering scandal itself.²³ The Independent observed that the series also showed how Cricket Australia's in-house content operation, built since 2013, made the dressing-room access possible, and noted that England's board turned down a similar offer for its own team.¹⁰

The series holds an 8.8/10 rating on IMDb.²⁴

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026