Seeing as the spec has been ignited again, I'll share my two cents.
A new cricket game this year or next year is wishful at best. In Melbourne, we've had hard lockdowns for nigh on two years, with curfews and five km bubbles, productivity is pretty hard to get going let alone sustain for a company that operates in the cbd. At best, they've started working on it for a few months.
Suffice to say that with nacon acquisition comes a lot of paperwork and legalities that take place which can slow down production for a bit before its all finalised, not to mention what nacon want out of Big Ant (apart from cricket). Its a big restructure and dare I say the biggest an Australian game company has gone through, so it takes time.
Just because the ashes is an official partner doesn't mean an automatic release date for that time period, ideal - yes, necessary - no. Plus we don't know if they're building a new game engine from the ground up, waiting for unreal engine 5 etc or they're expanding licencing which takes more time to get, and more time to implement (ie players, grounds etc).
Personally, early 2023 is my realistic expectation for a new game, but... speculation.