Big Bash League 2016/17: A look back
The Australian domestic T20 season came to an end two days ago. The two teams – Perth Scorchers and Sydney Sixers – clashed in the finals of both the KFC Big Bash League (BBL, the men’s tournament) and the Rebel Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL, the women’s tournament). While the Scorchers won the BBL which was in its sixth edition, the Sixers coasted home in the WBBL’s second edition.
This was the Scorchers’ fifth appearance in BBL finals out of which they have won 3 titles. 2015-16 was the one season when they did not make the final yet ended up as one of the semi-finalists, a formidable achievement that is likened to that of Chennai Super Kings’ appearances in the last four till 2015.
Or to the Mumbai Ranji team with its frequent appearances in Ranji Trophy finals. Or to the Victoria Bushrangers’ achievements in the Big Bash (till 2010-11 before it became a league) where they made the finals 5 out of 6 times, winning 4 in the process.
What clicked for the Scorchers?
Stable squad across formats
Scorchers’ captain Adam Voges remarked post-match that having nearly the same team across formats was what defined their success. True enough for most of the members of the Scorchers’ line-up, save Mitchell Johnson and the England international players, also form part of the Western Australian teams for the first-class Sheffield Shield competition and the Matador BBQs one-day cup.
In a way the Sydney Sixers too are constituted of players from the New South Wales set-up captained by Moises Henriques and featuring leading names like Sean Abbott, Daniel Hughes and Doug Bollinger. However in the case of Sydney, having a second team in Thunder means the NSW players get divided across both teams.
‘Meditative’ coach
The Scorchers are coached by Justin ‘Alfie’ Langer who is known as a ‘mentally very strong player’ in Test cricket history. His mental strength came to the fore on the eve of the BBL final when he was faced with a dilemma of bringing in Jason Behrendorff, the pace spearhead of the Scorchers and WA, out with injury in the league stages, at the expense of the young incumbent Jhye Richardson, who had missed only one league match in the BBL and had bowled successfully alongside Johnson, Tye, Willey and Bresnan.
After a lot of deep thinking, Alfie took the tough call of leaving out Behrendorff and retaining Richardson, who produced exceptional results with 3 important wickets in the crunch game. Contrast this situation with that of the Melbourne Stars who brought in Daniel Worrall for their semi-final against the Scorchers.
Pacer Worrall had not featured in the league stages and bringing him into the XI in an important game like the semi-finals was a gamble that backfired. In hindsight, the Stars could have brought in Harry Potter doppelganger, Liam Bowe, who had a successful two matches against the Strikers and Sixers a week before the semi-final game.
Players stepping up
At least six teams were impacted by the entry and exit of players for international duty. The Melbourne Stars had the biggest chunk of international players in Maxwell, Faulkner, Zampa and later Stoinis, leaving the XI for Australian duty.
The Scorchers, on the other hand, had to contend with the departures of Mitchell Marsh and David Willey to international duty, Adam Voges and Sam Whiteman to injury for an interim period and alternating entry and exit of Ashton Agar and Hilton Cartwright. Even Shaun Marsh who had a successful last league match and semi-final had to miss the finals.
Even in the absence of such established players, the rest of the group ably stepped up to the demands of the game and delivered results. Notable among them were Ashton Turner, Sam Whiteman and the classy Michael Klinger.
Brisbane Heat was most affected with players not delivering in crunch situations. In their semi-final against the Sixers, Alex Ross did not create the impact he was expected to do so especially after Brendon McCullum’s exit after a brief blitzkrieg.
In team sports, it is important to have a strong core unit made up of the best players with other players rallying around it. The Scorchers’ success in the BBL over the six seasons is a testimony to this idea that other teams can pick cues from and develop their teams for the future.
Women’s cricket moves to next level
While the BBL was scheduled in a leaner way with teams facing each other in a single round-robin followed by an additional game each against ‘designated rivals’ (Eg. Melbourne Renegades and Melbourne Stars, Sydney Sixers and Sydney Thunder) making up 32 league games in all, the WBBL was scheduled in a dual round-robin format making up 56 games in all.
Most of the league games were thrown open to the public with free entry to the stadiums.
A notable positive of the WBBL was the flexibility given to international players from other countries. Amy Satterthwaite of Hobart Hurricanes was given the flexibility to fly to New Zealand to turn up for her home team, Canterbury Magicians, briefly before returning to resume WBBL duty.
Other cases in point are South Africans Marizanne Kapp and Dan van Niekerk of Sydney Sixers who flew to Bangladesh to take part in the bilateral ODI series against Bangladesh Women and returned for the semis and finals.
India too had something to cheer about as Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana were signed up by Sydney Thunder and Brisbane Heat, respectively, and featured in 13 and 12 games, respectively, before returning to India for a training camp. Kaur scored 296 runs, the second highest for Thunder, and picked 6 wickets at 17.66 in a remarkable all-round display.
Perhaps the major highlight of the WBBL is that there was live streaming of all the matches and in this regard, Cricket Australia has done a commendable job. The England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB), which also organises T20 competitions for women, did not do so owing to restrictive terms with the broadcaster Sky Sports.
Women’s cricket could only grow further with T20 as the gateway in the coming days, having received a shot in the arm in the form of two successful editions of the WBBL. T20 continues to herald developments in world cricket and the recent Big Bash League is a proof of this.