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Remember the ING Cup, with its catchy ad jingle, the signs on the boundary that players got money for hitting, and the people that got money for catching sixes in the crowd?
Crowds were okay – they weren’t at Big Bash levels, but they were okay. Games would line up with the Sheffield Shield (or Pura Cup as it was known then), and the public actually knew games were on.
Now, even some of the more ardent cricket fans would have been forgiven for missing the entire JLT Cup with games being shoved into a month and played all in a select few grounds, which in itself has been causing issues (See: North Sydney Oval).
Upon entering the fifth year of the condensed format, Victoria and South Australia are yet to play a List A game at home under the new structure, with Hobart getting three games this year, two being the finals series.
In the days of the Mercantile Mutual Cup and the ING Cup, Sunday 10 am on Channel Nine meant domestic cricket. Then when it turned into the Ford Ranger Cup, Fox Sports picked up basically every game.
Then under the new format, Channel Nine took it back and flicked it around their main channel and their offshoot channels, offering the domestic game back to the masses.
Not this year though.
This year Cricket Australia took the JLT Cup and hid it. They put all the games on their app and website and did not advertise it.
The cricket itself has been very good.
New up and comers in Will Sutherland and Cameron Valente have made themselves noticed, cult hero Mickey Edwards became more than a long-haired sub fielder, Nic Maddinson and Usman Khawaja have pushed for recalls, Dan Hughes continues to plunder runs, Joe Mennie and Sean Abbott have stuck their hand up to help with the pace bowler shortage and the Marsh brothers once again cast doubt into the selectors mind with stellar performances, even though the public has already cast them off forever.
But the majority of the cricketing public were unable to cast their eye over these performances until it was too late, due to Cricket Australia deciding to hide its light under the internet bushel.
The internet and streaming is the way of the future as it’s how more and more people are consuming their content, but people won’t consume the content if they don’t know it is there.
A combined streaming/TV package would have more than sufficed, as it has in previous iterations, and meant that kids could have a new generation to look up to ahead of the junior cricket season, and the general public would know who to look forward to seeing.
By the way, Western Australia defeated South Australia in the final in Hobart by six wickets. The crowd? Struggling to breach 500.
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