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If it’s the week before Christmas, it must be Big Bash League time. The fourth edition of all-singing, all-dancing Australian Twenty20 competition kicks off tonight in Adelaide.
In front of what will likely be the first of many massive Adelaide Oval crowds, the Adelaide Strikers in blue will take-on the BBL’s very own ‘silvertails’ – the grass-green Melbourne Stars.
AUSTRALIA VS INDIA: DAY TWO LIVE SCORES
Continue to poke fun at the BBL if you must, but you can’t argue with the popularity of the competition. Sell-out and record crowds in Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, Melbourne, and Brisbane last season saw record scores, record numbers of sixes hit and the best part of a million people around the country enjoyed every match on new BBL broadcaster, Network Ten.
It’s all led to a much-anticipated BBL|04, where any number of pressing questions await their answers.
Can the Perth Scorchers reach a fourth consecutive BBL Final? Will the Melbourne Stars choke yet again? How long before Kevin Pietersen’s charm offensive wears off, and he goes back to the headphones?
Is ‘Freddie Flintoff’ serious in his comeback, or is he out here on a Brisbane-funded holiday? Are the Adelaide Oval and Bellerive Oval in Hobart big enough to contain Kieron Pollard and Alex Hales, respectively?
Chasing is the new black. Again…
Around about this time last year, I detailed how batting second and chasing a total, rather than setting one, was becoming the trend in the BBL and Twenty20 in general.
Then I sat and watch the first two rounds, and as sure as day becomes night, four of the first seven results went the way of the team batting first.
This ended up being the way of BBL|03, where 19 of the 34 games were won by the team setting the total. Just to ram home the point even further, Australian won two of its three T20Is against England in the run up to the BBL Finals. So much for that trend, then.
Funnily enough, though, chasing is back in vogue, and in a big way.
During the 2014 IPL, the team batting second won 38 of the 60 matches, and likewise, 21 of the 30 Caribbean Premier League games were won chasing.
Over in New Zealand, in the Georgie Pie Super Smash last month – and you thought ‘Big Bash League’ was an wacky name – 17 of the 30 games that were decided (there were three no results) were won by the team batting second.
I would expect that chasing will remain the preference for the BBL|04, but then I said that last year, didn’t I.
It seems to be easier for fielding captains to take the pace off the bowling, and pressure the batting side without the worry of having to defend a total. Similarly, it’s easier for the chasing side to rationalise the risk of looking for the boundary when they know what the equation is.
Speaking of bowling…
Trying to get a handle on which teams will do well and which one won’t can be as big a lottery as Twenty20 cricket itself. Knowing that the ability to take the pace off the ball is so crucial in this form of the game, it’s interesting to look through the squads and see which teams have equipped themselves well in the slow-bowling department.
Most teams have two specialist spinners among their 18-man squads. Some have gone to the extra extent of having a third spin option, be it a batsman who can bowl some darts, or a spinner who can do some damage from no.7 in the order, or even a Glenn Maxwell.
The Sydney Thunder worry me in this department. They have Nathan Hauritz and two largely unknown rookies. Hauritz is no longer on the First Class circuit, but he’s still going to be the frontline tweaker for the lime spiders. But if he cops some tap, then what? Do your best, rookie, the game’s on the line.
Funnily enough, the Sydney Sixers’ bowling worries me for the opposite reason. They’ll be well served in the spin department by Messrs Lyon and O’Keefe, but with the possible exception of Trent Copeland and Dwayne Smith, there’s a lot of ‘sameness’ about an attack featuring Brett Lee, Doug Bollinger, Sean Abbott, and Moises Henriques. At least Mitchell Starc gives them another angle, but how often is he going to be available?
International stars out the wazoo
Can’t get your head around the idea of watching Australian state batsmen clubbing the bejesus out of state bowlers? Then tune your eyes into the stars on offer, of which there are heaps.
Kieron Pollard, Ryan ten Doeschate (Adelaide); Andrew Flintoff, Dan Vettori (Brisbane); Tim Bresnan, Alex Hales, Darren Sammy (Hobart); Andre Russell, Jesse Ryder, Dwayne Bravo (Melbourne Renegades); Kevin Pietersen, Luke Wright (Melbourne Stars); Michael Carberry, Yasir Arafat (Perth); Michael Lumb (Sydney Sixers); and Jacques Kallis and Eoin Morgan (Sydney Thunder).
And that’s before you start counting the local stars down to play for their various teams and for varying lengths of time. There might be a chance for some of the Australian Test players to sneak a game in early next week, and maybe between the Melbourne and Sydney Tests, but probably not the bowlers.
Forget bold predictions – here’s a Wild-Arsed Guess
Everyone wants to make a bold prediction, but scratch the surface of said boldness with something as abrasive as say, a feather, and you’ll reveal the real truth: they’re just WAGs.
So here’s mine, too.
Melbourne Stars and Hobart to finish top two. Perth, Adelaide, and Melbourne Renegades battling for the last two playoff spots. And both Sydneys and Brisbane to struggle.
But don’t take a second mortgage out to back these…