A home series against Bangladesh may have seemed the perfect chance for Australia to shake off rust and ease ​into a huge year of test cricket, but the shambolic defeat to the South Asian side in Darwin ‌has the top-ranked hosts searching for answers to uncomfortable questions about their future.

Australia’s social media restrictions came into effect in December 2025, triggering a domino effect across the globe as countries in Europe and Asia debated or adopted similar rules. Together these legal reforms form the biggest regulatory and cultural overhaul faced by tech platforms since the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation came into effect in 2018.