Bash lure for stars
Extra cash for top Aussies
Big Bash League clubs will have more incentive to sign top local players, with Cricket Australia to provide additional salary cap relief to compensate them when stars are unavailable because of national team commitments.
Last year, CA introduced a mechanism in which Test players such as Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc could be signed as marquee supplementary players outside the salary cap because they were unlikely to feature during the BBL season.
But with issues persisting around the availability of nationally contracted players, clubs will now be eligible for salary cap concessions for any player unavailable for at least half the side’s BBL regular season matches.
Under what has been branded the “priority player bonus” mechanism for next season, clubs will receive a $51,000 salary cap subsidy for any CAcontracted player ruled out of seven or more BBL regular season matches. That sum is equal to the minimum BBL retainer.
Clubs will receive a bonus $25,500 – half the minimum retainer – for any player available for five or six of his club’s 10 regular season games. The bonus money will be available to be used in next season’s salary cap.
Cummins (Sydney Thunder) and Starc (Sydney Sixers) were the only players picked up last season under the supplementary player rules, which apply to players who can play a maximum of one game.
But had the priority player rule been in place, the maximum bonus would have been triggered for a host of Australian-contracted players who played three games or less last season, including Nathan Lyon (Melbourne Renegades), Steve Smith (Sydney Sixers), Usman Khawaja and Marnus Labuschagne (Brisbane Heat), Scott Boland (Melbourne Stars), Travis Head and Alex Carey (Adelaide Strikers), David Warner (Sydney Thunder) and Mitch Marsh (Perth Scorchers).