Big Bash Twenty20 finals won't see best players competing due to international fixtures
Updated
Right now, the Big Bash is the biggest show in town.
Fans have become tribal, much like the AFL and NRL have been for a long time now, and it has happened quickly.
Take a look at the amount of orange in any Perth Scorchers crowd and it is easy to see how invested the public is.
But when the BBL final rolls around early next month, the teams playing will likely field significantly under-strength line-ups as Cricket Australia squeezes more limited-over internationals into the schedule.
"It really is a glitch in the system. It seems strange the scheduling [but that is] the world we live in," Scorchers coach Justin Langer said.
Johnson blasts scheduling
Australia will play a T20 international tri-series against New Zealand and England next month.
In the wake of an Ashes tour that attracted massive crowds and with a blockbuster South Africa series imminent, many — including champion fast bowler Mitchell Johnson — have questioned the need for the two quick-fire matches.
"I don't like it how T20s have been thrown on the end of a tour," Johnson told the ABC.
"It doesn't feel right to me and you are not getting a lot out of it."
Australia's first international T20 match is against the Black Caps on February 3 in Sydney, the day before the Big Bash final, meaning the country's best exponents of T20 cricket aren't available for the BBL finals.
T20 a game-changer
International cricket is the pinnacle in both ODIs and Tests, and domestic cricket has always been the pathway to reach that.
But Twenty20 is a different beast.
The Big Bash, with its huge crowds and massive TV audiences, has been a game-changer and opened up the game to new audiences.
BBL venues are packed with people from most demographics — girls, boys, mums and dads — evidence of T20's broad appeal.
(Even this journalist's middle-aged mum who "hates cricket" is scrambling to get a ticket to a Scorchers final.)
The stats from last season, provided by Cricket Australia, only reinforce how the Big Bash has quickly become a pillar of this nation's sporting summer:
- One million people — more than 56 per cent of the total number of people that went to cricket games last season — attended the 35 men's BBL games
- An average of 1.04 million tuned in to the BBL, making it the most popular TV viewing option on 31 nights out of 35
- Last year the BBL attracted an average crowd of 30,114 people per match
- 20 of the 35 matches were sold out.
The numbers may have suffered a slight dip this season, but they are still very strong and Johnson believes the BBL could reach another level if some creative thought was put into scheduling come finals time.
"You need to have your best players playing," Johnson said.
"I would love to see your Davey Warners, your Shaun Marshs, your Steve Smiths, all those guys playing. Mitchell Starc — he is an absolute genius in this format.
"You can just imagine how much better it would be having those guys around."
A few years ago, former Australian skipper Allan Border said international T20s should be abolished outside of a World Cup every two years, with domestic leagues like the IPL and BBL dominating the landscape.
It's an idea Johnson says has merit.
"We haven't done well enough as a nation to be winning those tournaments, so you need to find a way — and maybe that is getting these guys playing Big Bash, your top guys playing and strengthening the tournament," he said.
The BBL final, in time, could be the summer equivalent to the AFL Grand Final. But that will only happen if Cricket Australia fully backs the competition instead of competing against it, to the detriment of fans.
Topics: cricket, sport, perth-6000, wa
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