LIFT IMPORTS

Cricket Tas chief’s call to boost BBL talent pool

FEWER club cricketers and more overseas imports is Cricket Tasmania chief executive Nick Cummins’ call to improve the Big Bash League.

Currently teams have two overseas players, but Cummins wants this increased to three for BBL09 to strengthen the league’s depth of talent.

“I’d like to see a third overseas player for teams,” Cummins said. “There were a number of games where the 11th player wasn’t a state contracted player, let alone a BBL contracted player.”

He said while the salary cap should increase some to accommodate the new player, it should not rise at any cost.

“What I’m mindful of is I don’t think it is helpful for us to get into a bidding war with overseas leagues for certain players because all that is is money that could be spent on other parts of cricket leaving these shores,” he said.

“Throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars at a player who may or may not be invested in Australian cricket and its development, is that the best way to spend cricket’s money?”

This summer saw the BBL expand from seven home-andaway games for each team to 10, increasing the total number of matches from 43 to 59 in one hit. Cummins gave the first season a conditional tick.

“There was a lot of change in the first year of the new broadcast rights deal,” he said.

“You had new broadcasters and an expanded season off the back of an expanded season in BBL07 so that is a lot of change for the fans and the media to take on board in one hit.”

He identified the areas for improvements as salary cap; number of overseas players; home-and-away structure; and finals structure.

Cummins said rewarding the top team and tinkering with the roster season to maximise different states’ school holidays were other areas for discussion.

But he said the number of games would not be reduced because cricket was not about to give a free hit to the winter codes already encroaching into summer. “If we are not taking Big Bash into February, you can be sure AFL in the south and NRL in the north are going to be playing their code in February,” Cummins said.

“They are not going to sit there and say, ‘Let’s just leave that shallow and the sports fan can have a break’, and you can already see that with the var- ious tournaments, whether it is Sevens, or AFLW or AFLX.

“I do find it a little bit rich that some suggest the cricket season is too long when contracting the cricket season would mean lengthening the football season.”

TV ratings were down 8 per cent on last year, but Cummins said all free-to-air TV ratings were down 11 per cent from 2017 to 2018, including the AFL’s by the same amount.

Average attendances for Tasmanian home-and-away Big Bash games dropped from 13,229 for BBL07 to 11,197 for BBL08.

But, given there were two more home games, the aggregate increased from 67,680 to 78,376 (not including the semifinal crowd of 12,404).

“That [average attendances] is an unusual way to look at it,” he said.

“But another way to look at it is last year we had 67,680 people come to our games and this year we’ve had 78,376 plus the semi-final.

“It is our biggest season ever.

“More people than ever have come to the cricket.”