A frustrated fan's letter to Cricket Australia

To Kim McConnie and Cricket Australia,

Hello, you wouldn’t know me from a bar of soap but I am your ordinary Australian cricket fan, I sit down and watch a lot of cricket over the summer be it the test matches, the ODIs and even a lot of domestic cricket with one dayers, Sheffield Shield and the Big Bash League. I grew up watching cricket every summer and looked forward to the domestic one dayers being on tv when the rugby league season was done.

However I regret to say that I have problems with Australian cricket and the scheduling of it, the problem being with the Big Bash League now becoming the predominant feature of the Australian summer with matches every single night of the week barring the first two ODIs v India from just before Christmas and it has become concerning that the length of Big Bash League is causing additional problems.

1,  Players in the Australian ODI squad will pretty much have to be on the plane to India right after the Big Bash League final on February 17 so therefore guys like Marcus Stoinis and Glenn Maxwell will be relying on white ball form to push for Ashes selection rather than having a chance to show they have what it takes in test cricket by playing in the Sheffield Shield when it eventually resumes, they won’t get a chance to play Shield cricket either because Australia tour both India and the UAE (series v Pakistan) right up until April and with Sheffield Shield ending with the final in late March, there’s no chance Stoinis and others will get that opportunity unless selectors choose a weakened team for the tour of India but I don’t see that happening.

2. The Big Bash League has stopped being fun…in between the repetitive P.A. noise used as crowd participation that hasn’t changed since the first Big Bash of the city format to the same god damn fireworks and now to add to it, the matches this Big Bash have kind of sucked be it because of the pitches a lack of quality players because most of the good players have decided to play a T20 league that is shorter with more money in Bangladesh over the Big Bash League, some of the basics of cricket are done rather poorly eg: the basic ground fielding and catching from the Brisbane Heat was atrocious and some pretty strange umpiring to say the least.

3. 59 matches is just too many for a league that has been of a really poor standard this season even if Cricket Australia are loving the crowds, the TV figures and the money and no amount of sticking your head in the sand while insisting the Big Bash League will remain the same length is going to fix it. No, it’s not like AFL and NRL, Ms McConnie, the AFL and NRL do not have matches every single day of the week, AFL and NRL fans get a rest Monday through Wednesday and the occasional Thursday, they are actually able to take a deep breath and build excitement to the next fixtures unlike the BBL.

4. The scheduling isn’t helping the selectors at all. Am surprised none of them have quit yet.

I have a solution though:

What I propose is this: Going back to what worked with the 4^th and 5^th seasons of the BBL and making it a 38 game competition starting traditionally on 20^th December. The finals would consist of three matches. Semi final between 3^rd and 4^th, a prelim final between 2^nd and the winner of semi final, 1^st would then take on the winner of prelim final in the Grand Final to be played on Australia Day. To make it fair, home and away could be done over two years eg: if Sydney Sixers play Perth Scorchers at the SCG in BBL9 then in BBL 10, Sixers would travel to Perth.

Think about it, a shorter BBL would see international players find the BBL appealing and maybe stay for the whole tournament, would open up the opportunity to schedule the T20Is after the BBL so that Australian players not involved in the test team can also play BBL for the whole season and teams like the Melbourne Stars aren’t so badly affected in January and also February would be opened up to an early resumption of Sheffield Shield so players aren’t having to use ODIs to push test selection claims

Also the BBL could have more double header weekends which could open the way for breaks during the week just to allow people to look forward to the next game. Hell it’s not going to kill anyone if there’s no Big Bash League game on for a day or two. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

We need a better-balanced summer, Cricket Australia, right now it’s all weighted toward the Big Bash League and that is wrong. Please consider making changes for the sake of Australian cricket’s long-term future across all formats of the game in this country. Please put aside money and take steps to help the selectors, the players and even fans who are tiring of the overly long BBL.

From a frustrated Australian cricket fan.