The White Ferns captain will lead the national side during two inbound tours.
She will captain the Otago Sparks in the domestic twenty20 and one-day competition and will also play in the inaugural Big Bash League for the Perth Scorchers.
Her ''summer'' gets under way on November 3 with the first of five one-dayers against Sri Lanka, followed by three twenty20 internationals.
Then it is straight into a round of domestic games before the Big Bash League interrupts the New Zealand domestic season for four weeks.
The highlight is Australia's tour in February and March. It is an opportunity for the White Ferns to take back the Rose Bowl.
''We have not played for the Rose Bowl in a while ... and they are probably the top team in the world at the moment, so it is going to be a huge challenge,'' Bates said.
The build-up for the Sri Lankan series would be a bit limited, Bates said.
But some warm-up games against a New Zealand A side were proposed.
''There is not a lot of opportunity for warm-up games but hopefully we'll just manage to train smarter.''
The 27-year-old all-rounder has played for Perth for the past three years but there is more hype with the rebranding of the twenty20 tournament this season.
''It is a pretty hard standard of competition anyway, but with the addition of a few more English players, and I think they are trying to get some of the West Indians involved, it is going to be pretty exciting and probably the best level of cricket outside internationals.''
Bates said it made sense for the New Zealand domestic competitions to take a break during the Big Bash League.
''I guess there is going to be six to eight players involved in the Big Bash and that would just put a big hole in the domestic game, so they've tried to fit it in so it won't impact on the domestic game.''
The under-21 tournament will be staged during the break for the Big Bash but for the older players there is just club cricket or training to fill the void.
Bates felt Otago did not perform as well as it was capable of last season. But as long as the key players reached their potential, she was confident the Sparks could beat anyone.
