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Ricky Ponting. Shane Warne. Chris Gayle. Brad Young. Scott Coyte… wait, who?
Roarers, here is the second edition of the city-based Big Bash League Twenty20 tournament, where you’ll see players collide in the form of geriatrics, mercenaries and Neville Nobodies.
Among the promotion and hype, the standard of cricket has been mediocre.
It began promisingly from a ratings point of view. Last year’s first-round BBL match, which featured Warne’s first appearance in five years on Australian soil, attracted ratings of 478,000, giving it the fifth-highest pay-TV ratings of all time.
This year’s first match, with Warne again the star attraction, dropped to 344,000.
Ratings have declined as the tournament continues. Last week the Sydney Thunder versus Adelaide Strikers attracted 219,000, while the Melbourne Renegades versus Hobart Hurricanes match got 197,000. A far cry from last year when matches were regularly watched by over 300,000.
The crowds have also been a talking point, highlighted by a dismal turn-out of 4,101 between Sydney Thunder and Adelaide Strikers at the 83,000 seat ANZ stadium.
The average crowd this season has been 10,026. Last season’s was 17,750. The state based Twenty20 comp in season 2009/10 averaged 18,153, and had some crowds of well over 30,000 particularly when the Victorian Bushrangers were playing.
Cricket, like any sport needs new stars. Having the likes of Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan, Gibbs, and Simon Katich, are gone from international cricket. Then there’s Brad Young, a 39-year-old spinner who hasn’t played at a decent level for nearly a decade. The BBL looks like a retirement home.
At the same time you have guns for hire like Chris Gayle, who seems uninterested in playing for the Thunder.
There has been talk of some rivalry between the BBL and the A-league, given the BBL have convincingly beaten the A-league in the ratings. You can’t compare apples with oranges, where one tournament goes for six weeks and the other six months.
The rivalry between the BBL and the A-League is about as fake as a Kim Kardashian marriage. Kardashian and the BBL have things in common – they lack substance, seek attention and appeal to those people with short attention spans.
Is Cricket Australia really insulting the fans’ intelligence? Do you really want to see the Sydney Thunder (who haven’t won a game for over a year) send out the likes of Scott Coyte and Sean Abbott: grade cricketers who can’t make it in the Shield.
But enough criticism. Here are some things that CA could do to improve the BBL.
Have one team in Sydney and Melbourne. Two teams called Sydney and Melbourne makes no sense. Have our state players play for their home cities. NSW player Doug Bollinger playing for Hobart… please!
If it’s a city based competition, why don’t the BBL branch out to regional areas like Geelong, Newcastle, Illawarra or the capital itself.
If you bring big time cricket to these regional areas, it gives the sport good promotion and perhaps helps with grassroots cricket.
Reduce the BBL from six weeks to three of four. The smaller time frame you have, the more likely you’ll have Test players available for the whole BBL. As the BBL has shown, there is not enough talent to go around to fill eight teams. Have the BBL after the Tests in early January. Than in February have the international ODIs and Twenty20s.
With extra weeks available from a reduced BBL, our state teams would have a chance to play against the touring sides. NSW v South Africa, Victoria v Sri Lanka. Remember the days when our state sides gave the touring sides a walloping, and did the Australian Test side a favour by not allowing the touring side any good form leading into a series?
The Australian A and Chairman’s XI games were played over two days and were nothing but meaningless. So meaningless that Chairman’s XI captain Usman Khawaja had to leave on Day 3 of the match so that he could travel back to Sydney to play for Sydney Thunder.
At the end of the day, I don’t mind Twenty20 cricket. But when it takes over a good portion of the summer, and the cricket itself is of low quality, than it becomes a concern. Our Test team and Shield cricket should always take a higher priorty than the BBL.
To everyone here on the Roar, have a happy and prosperous new year!
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