BBL 2020-21: David Warner not in favor of tinkering with the rules
Star Australian batsman David Warner believes that tinkering with the Big Bash League rules is not necessary and will only scratch the surface of the problem. According to him, the lack of growth in the BBL mostly comes from the dearth of more Australian players and international stars being available for the tournament.
The three new changes, 'Power Surge', 'X-factor Player' and 'Bash Boost', have prompted a passionate debate in the cricket fraternity. From the looks of it, the tinkering is reasoned to make the sport more engaging and give more impetus to batsmen for high-scoring.
David Warner told Sydney Morning Herald:
"I think the most important thing is if you can get the Australian players and the best international players coming out to play in that, that would probably fix that sort of issue with what they're trying to tinker with the rules."
Major league Australian players including David Warner, Steve Smith and Pat Cummins will not be playing in the Big Bash League this season owing to the league's clash with India's tour of Australia in December.
David Warner's opinion of making the BBL more engaging
David Warner, who is arguably the best overseas batsman in the Indian Premier League, said that even though the motives behind the changes are understandable, the real change in BBL's popularity will come from getting the best cricketing talent to play in the tournament. He said:
"The rules that have come out, I understand the reasoning why they're bringing it out. Do we need to tinker with it? Personally, I don't think we do, I think it's just about getting the right people to come out and play, the right access to players to play, the Australian contracted players."
This was probably a reference to the IPL which, every year, sees the most reputable cricketers of the world competing with each other in an exhilarating format - a feat that the BBL has failed to recreate till now.
Earlier, all-rounder, Shane Watson had also come out in the opposition of the rules calling them misguided attempts to revitalize the game.
David Warner concluded:
"When you lose three wickets in Powerplays, which happened quite significantly the last couple of years, the game's pretty much dead, especially when you're chasing 200. So if you can sort of have that extra Powerplay at the end, that sub, vice versa, it can make a difference - we'll have to wait and see. But first and foremost, I think it's getting the best players to play, and at this present time in the scheduling, it's very difficult to do that."