BBL07: Have we had the last BBL-free Christmas?

If you’re reading this, you’ve survived two nights without Big Bash League cricket to watch on the TV (or at ground near you). Perfect opportunities to resolve annual family disputes by bringing them together to watch cricket have been lost.

Could it be the last time you’ll have to endure talking to the ‘relos’ all Christmas Night?

Well, maybe. And only maybe.

Cricket Australia don’t shy away from it, and they even say fairly regularly that BBL cricket on Christmas Eve and Christmas Night is inevitable. But we’re just no closer to knowing when it will happen.

The Perth Scorchers-Melbourne Stars game in Perth on Boxing Day is the first of 22 games in 19 straight days. The first six games in five days to kick off BBL07 was the entrée to this buffet-sized main course.

But just as we get used to the cricket-driven summer TV line-up, December 24 and 25 continue to be BBL-free. And like expansion of the competition that seems equally inevitable, the question needs to be asked: when will this happen?

Auckland played Wellington in NZ’s Super Smash on Christmas Eve, and the NBL scheduled a game on Sunday night between Adelaide and Cairns. The BBL’s closest sporting competitors don’t miss the opportunity. And Boxing Day scheduling is commonplace these days, as we all know.

Why should the players have to travel on Christmas Day, you might ask, but that’s easily fixed, too. You could just schedule Melbourne and Sydney derbies for December 24 and 25 and no one needs to travel at all. In fact, a Melbourne derby on Christmas Night in the Docklands would the perfect lead-in to the Boxing Day Test at the MCG.

Make it a huge family festival – even with large portions of the entry price going to Christmas charities or the like – and it becomes the perfect way to finish Christmas Day.

Maybe the next TV deal is the timeframe we’re looking at, and the seemingly accepted increase in the number of games played and the number of weeks the tournament will run for will likely necessitate playing games over Christmas anyway, lest the BBL not finish until March.

(AAP Image/David Crosling)

Until it happens though, we have this weird feeling that something’s missing. If it’s so inevitable that BBL games will be played on Christmas Day, then what are we waiting for?

For how many more years must we endure Uncle Terry’s slightly inebriated, slightly inappropriate comedy routine?

Won’t Cricket Australia, please, think of the children?

BBL07 table

After the Renegades knocked off Brisbane by seven wickets on Saturday night in Melbourne, the Big Bash League table looks this way.

MELBOURNE RENEGADES 4, ADELAIDE 2, PERTH 2, BRISBANE 2; Sydney Thunder 2; Sydney Sixers 0, Hobart 0, Melbourne Stars 0.

(AAP Image/Joe Castro)

Upcoming games

TUESDAY – GAME 7: Perth Scorchers v Melbourne Stars, the WACA: It’s quite remarkable that the Scorchers are again battling an annual horror injury and unavailability list, yet can still put out a side that’s not just competitive, but actually well-balanced, too.

Their bowling is the strength, and that’s their best way of attacking green-Melbourne. The Stars’ top order should be dispatching attacks everywhere, yet they look vulnerable to early wickets. And with so many dashers, it’s hard for them to consolidate when they need to.

TIP – Scorchers in front of a sold out ‘Furnace’ should be too good.

WEDNESDAY – GAME 8: Brisbane Heat v Sydney Thunder, the Gabba: Like the Stars, Brisbane have a wonderful batting line-up on paper, but a nervous one that’s stuttering on the field. In the absence of Chris Lynn – who may or may not be back this game – Brendon McCullum is trying to do it all himself, but in both Brisbane’s opening games, he’s fallen early in the innings.

If he really wants to do it all himself, he needs to bat at least the first ten or twelve overs. But the Thunder have the same trouble; a lack of support for Shane Watson. So this game becomes a race to get the key bats the earliest.

TIP – Heat. But only if Chris Lynn plays…

THURSDAY – GAME 9: Sydney Sixers v Adelaide Strikers, SCG: Wickets in clumps is the Sydney Sixers’ biggest problem at the moment. They started well enough against the Thunder in Game 1, but then lost 3/5 between the 10th and 12th over, and 4/33 in the last four overs of their innings.

Against Perth on Saturday night, it was 3/4 in and around the end of the batting powerplay, 2/1 in three balls in the 14th over, and 3/0 as Andrew Tye took his second BBL hat-trick (and third overall) to wrap up the innings. The Strikers have a really handy bowling attack, well and truly equipped to take advantage of yet another pink-Sydney implosion.

TIP – Strikers. I’ll get enthused about the Sixers when they survive a batting powerplay.

FRIDAY – GAME 10: Melbourne Renegades v Perth Scorchers: They might be even older than Dad’s Army, but the Renegades are fast showing why they featured so heavily in all the pre-BBL predictions. Ricky Ponting thinks they can go all the way, and consecutive wins to start their season definitely helps.

I reckon this is their biggest test to date; Perth’s bowling attack is apparently down to seventh and eighth choices, yet is performing like they’re First XI regulars. A Renegades win here, and we’ll be using the term ‘finals-bound’ very soon.

TIP – Renegades are on a roll now.