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I enjoyed last year’s Big Bash and generally enjoy the Twenty20 format. It is nice to be able to go to a game after work or on a weekend evening and be able to watch the whole game. It’s not a massive investment of time and sometimes that counts for a lot.
Test cricket is the Rolls Royce of cricket formats, but it is still nice to take the convertible for a spin sometimes.
My problem is that I am really struggling to get behind my local Big Bash team, the Adelaide Strikers in this case. Over the years of watching the Redbacks I have developed an attachment and loyalty to them, I feel as if I know them although I have never actually met any of them.
I have my favourite players in the team, been there for the wins and the losses and feel like I am a small part of the Redbacks family. They are ‘my’ team.
After last year’s Big Bash I was looking forward to this season’s event. But then Cricket Australia threw a spanner into the works. They replaced a successful Big Bash format with what appears to be the IPL’s third cousin twice removed.
Sure, there is a team based in Adelaide but it’s not the Redbacks, it is some other team that I am expected to magically transfer my support to. But I feel, at best, ambivalent towards them, even though there are a number of Redback players in the squad.
Why?
For starters, these guys are wearing blue. Blue. That has always been a colour that one of the opponents wear. It might not seem like a big thing but it is like the feeling I would have if I found out that Coopers Brewery were going to stop making beer so that they can concentrate on the soft drink market.
It makes it even more difficult to accept a new team when it does not even look like the one it is replacing.
Then there is the issue of the players. Five of the 18 players in the Strikers squad are not from South Australia and all of those five are probably going to start each game so the starting 11 might only have 6 South Australians in it.
The other players are from Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland and overseas, am I honestly expected to start supporting them all of a sudden when up until now they have been considered the enemy?
If they were joining the Redbacks and making some kind of a commitment to South Australian cricket then I would be more accepting of them but after the Big Bash they are simply going back to their respective states and countries.
Then there are players that I particularly enjoy watching but who have now signed for other teams, Daniel Christian being a good example. Thanks to the free-agency system of the Big Bash he has decided to play for Brisbane Heat.
Does that mean I should now support that team? Not going to happen.
Messing around with people’s teams seldom goes down well, there is always the possibility of alienating those supporters. Expansion in rugby league is a hot topic at the moment and there have been a few articles on The Roar that have suggested ways of dealing with it.
I understand the need for future expansion of the Big Bash but isn’t there a better way of doing it? Like keeping the existing teams and adding teams from Geelong, Darwin, North Queensland or wherever and use a mixture of their local players and fringe players from other states who are not getting playing time where they are.
Supporters from those new areas will probably not have the problem that I am having about identifying with their new team because they don’t have a team currently in the Big Bash.
At a push I am willing to accept that teams be allowed 1 (not the current 2) international player, it does give the Big Bash a slightly different flavour and adds a bit more interest.
I realize that some people do not care about any of this in the slightest and they will jump on board with this whole new concept with no problem but the Strikers simply do not feel like my team, they are just a bunch of guys using the Adelaide Oval as their home ground for the Big Bash.
I tried to get excited about the IPL when it was launched but could not connect with it and I think the new Big Bash is going to be similar.
I’m just glad that I don’t live in Melbourne or Sydney because all of this would be made worse by the fact that I would have two ‘local’ teams to choose from.
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