How we saw Round 1 of the Big Bash League

Rellum, this is the same discussion you raised on Tuesday. I have to agree with Mike's comment here, there ARE people (and Rabbitz below is an example) who don't care for Twenty20 cricket as a format, not just the new BBL. These people also didn't care for the old Big Bash, the IPL, the CLT20 and so on. All Mike is saying here (as I was trying to on Tues and yesterday), that these people have every right to not like T20 as a game. Mike just hopes that these people can respect that there are also people who ONLY like T20, and that's a fairly reasonable request, for mine.

JD, not too much cricket. Too many trophies. If anything there is a lack of high profile cricket played; venues go under-used (the MCG gets maybe a dozen days of int'l cricket per year, that is low) and in many nations are under-developed, there are whole weeks in the schedule without games even on tv at the height of summer. In most sports, the season climaxes with 1, but sometimes up to 4 trophies; plus 1 or 2 international tournaments. Even so, that is too many, our attention as fans is limited to only 2 or 3 major narratives. In the year up to the champions league, including domestic cricket, Watson turned out for teams that played for 17 different trophies. Multiple formats don't make too much cricket, but they dilute the narrative by adding trophies. And too many trophies drain all but the very biggest events of interest. Seventeen. In about 8 months of cricket.

Had we kept the state model you could still play games in regional centres, thus bringing the game to new markets. As it is now, non metro areas have no buy in whatsoever. Worthwhile expansion would have been Canberra, NT and maybe something like North Qld. Or NZ. All doable with the old BBL. "The crowd figures and TV ratings would tend to indicate that there’s not that many who are that angry with the new teams" Except in Sydney & Melb where people don't know which glibly marketed fast food franchise to support.

OK, here's a few ideas to start with Ben which would obviously need some workshopping. I'd be looking at first innings compulsory closure at 80-100 overs, 4 day tests. Modified ODI fielding restrictions would apply. Play it as day/night with white balls where possible. Run penalties for slow over rates. It's essentially test cricket as we know it but with more urgency and almost guaranteed results (bar rain etc). 'it's just not cricket'. Well it is, more so than T20 (which is partly responsible for the pressing need to be bold and make some hard calls on the incumbent forms of the game). But T20 is here to stay. In their current form the others are dying a slow death.

Um, have you noticed the 'crowds' at test and ODI cricket here and around the world over the past few years? And yes, my point exactly - what other team sport has 3 different versions of the same thing? How exactly do you get the scheduling right when in one summer players are pulled between 6 test matches, domestic and international ODI's and the same with T20? There's only so many days in the week. Players are not robots and there is simply too much cricket for even the most avid fans to bear.

Rellum my neck is sore from vigorously agreeing with you!

Gday Mike, I hope you get a chance to read through this page. I agree wholeheartedly with what JD is saying here. Surely if you promoted the state teams with the same level of enthusiasm you would have had similar if not better results. "I wonder how many more would have gone to the G on Fri had Warne been representing the Big V against NSW." My guess is twenty thousand tickets unsold. And furthermore, why on earth did you give them all such stupid names and ridiculous colours? I'm sure they will appeal to eight year old kids, but will they still find them cool when they are 16? People will only think T20 is a joke while you treat it as such. The quality of the cricket is good enough that you don't need the stupidity, Have a good one, Mark Young

Mike - many thanks for taking the time to update us on the new competition, however there's something that's really worrying me. As you can see from the responses, you've managed to alienate the vast number of passionate, committed state cricket fans who simply won't have anything to do with the BBL because of their deep commitment to their state team. What will Cricket Australia do to make up the revenue shortfall from the loss of this deeply important part of your customer base? To help out, I've come up with a couple of ideas that might be useful: 1) put a collection tin in the kitchen at CA headquarters. Every time someone makes a cup of tea, they have to put in 5 cents. You should make up the shortfall by lunchtime on Christmas eve. 2) start selling chocolate bars and cans of soft drink out front of your building. Assuming no problems with the council, this should sort out the problems in a couple of hours. 3) Finally, if these other ideas are too difficult, check behind your sofa tonight for any spare change. Keep anything bigger than 50c for yourself and bring the rest into work. This should take care of things, next year you might want to think about employee cake sales, although that will probably far exceed the revenue stream generated by our passionate but disenfranchised state fans, so might not be worth the effort.

Again I ask to show me any evidence that the game was ready for expansion, where were the big crowds, blogs and consortium's demanding a team for their area? The crowds were shrinking. And please don't tell me that is a reason to expand because we have seen how well that went with the A-League. They could have tried taking games to smaller cities first, they could have tried marketing the existing comp.I could have handled sheek's idea of these teams, which have always been about the capitals anyway. Sydney Blues Melbourne Bushrangers Adelaide Redbacks Perth Warriors Brisbane Bulls Tasmania Tigers Then you could expand into other areas. In fact a lot of country cricketers hated the fact that they never got a look in as they didn't live in the city, so if there was regional BBL teams that city version country thing could be played up. They could also function as a talent pathway. The comp expansion would serve a sporting purpose as well as a marketing one.

Well it's always been about the long term expansion potential. You can't really add new teams when the existing team already represents the whole state. Making them cities will allow them, in the future, to expand the competition, which is their long-term aim. As long as they can hold on to the vast majority of the people who attended last year (and it looks like they are so far) then they have a solid base to work with and build upon.

Only if you want to play Ireland (and others). Only England really play after April and before September. Australia has flirted with home games then, but they lose money, as far as I can tell.

The point is the people that would have gone last year would still go this year, the people who don't like 20/20 wouldn't go at all and the people that don't like these new teams won't go. So the only new people that this change will attracted are people who like the bright shiny news names, colours and marketing spin. And those type of sports fan will not hang around for the long hall. So my point is they have changed to whole set up to attract a few extra theatre goers.

Yes we are getting off track. but you did say "growth needs to be gradual and sustainable". Like I said, I agree with you sentiment.

This discussion will completely derail this thread but... Bangladesh only lose because they are required to play teams above them, not because they are an awful team it is a contextual problem, not a competitive one. The problem with limiting test cricket to 4/5 teams is that as cricket grows outside those nations T20 (international T20) grows in importance. If 24-32 nations play in a T20 world cup (and 100+ try to qualify) and 4-10 play test cricket, which will appear to be more important?

They probably are but given that these people have always made up about 99.9% of the T20 crowd I'm not sure what the issue is here. The other 0.1% can still support their state team in Ryobi Cup and Shield matches. With 5 home Shield matches and 4 home Ryobi games each, that's 24 potential chances to support the state teams (about the same as the football codes.) Actually given the difference between the BBL crowds and Shield crowds, 0.1% seems a little generous. T20 is opening cricket up to a larger audience which, if they can get the balance right, can be a very good thing.

The Shield didn't have any love well before T20 came along and CA continue to plow money into it because it's the best way to produce test players which means a better, and more marketable, test side. It pays for itself by producing test players, which is where a lot of CA's revenue comes from (at least currently.) The ast part is only true if you assume they only play one form or the other. A state player currently plays up to 40 days of first-class cricket and probably 15 T20 games if they play IPL. Players in the BBL will play 7-9 games of T20. How many T20 games have Australia played this year compared to test matches (or test days?) There's more then enough test days to cover for the number of T20 games, at least for now.

Erm, I think we're getting off track. I think I did say that continuous growth was "not sustainable", Rellum. Cricket administrators need to get realistic about the potential for growth in the sport, even given the massive popularity of the game in India (who by the way, will gather even more financial clout as the years go on). I think T20 cricket on other planets would greatly appeal to the CA marketing department. They wouldn't even have to drain massive marketing budgets coming up with stupid team names, because people would not need prodding to go see a World XI take on an Aliens XI. And with the teeth and the new face he's rocking these days, Warney could get away with playing for either side.

I agree with your point, but you can't have endless growth unless we start colonizing other planets. Even then Earth can only hold so many people, so we would have to work out some way of getting a live feed out across the cosmos.

Now I admit I am not that interested in Twenty20 cricket. I've been to a couple of games at NSO and enjoyed it but not inspired enough to make the trek a regular event. I tuned in to a bit of the Fox broadcast and I can't for the life of me understand why Pakistan were playing. Well I assume the team in green with a big star on their outfits were Pakistan... Am I to assume that the marketing genius who came up with that concept has never watched cricket?

Chris, And the Brits thought Singapore was impregnable too, back in 1941! WSC played day/night supertests as long ago as 1978/79, & the overall technology has improved out of sight in 32 years. I though those day/nigh tests were terrific, despite the restrictions the packer circus was forced to deal with from the establishment. I can't remember the coloured ball used then, but i'm sure there was an ICC release just a few months where they decided a particular coloured ball was most suitable for day/night cricket. But I can't recall the colour. What is the tradition of cricket? Even as test cricket began, rounders were still allowed, as were mully-grubbers (flightless balls). I wouldn't want to see either of those things today. Moving away from white clothing, & playing day/night tests is an incredibly small price to pay in order to preserve test cricket. Life is about compromises. A small compromise can go a long way. The problem we have now is that the country's top cricketers are being asked to spread their time between tests; international & domestic T20; international & domestic one-dayers & Sheffield Shield. None of them can give all their time to all the forms. Sheffield Shield especially is suffering. And SS is attached to test cricket by an umbilical cord. You won't produce quality test cricketers from hit & giggle cricket. Something has to give, & at present it seems to be the wrong forms of the game are being ignored.