Overhauling the domestic season schedule

[Bazal]

Buttler averages in the mid 30’s in test cricket, that’s a gun? He’s very average.

Since being recalled he averages 45 at 70. He's dragged down by a poor stretch in 2015 which lead to his dropping, but since then he has been rather a few rungs above the laughable assessment of "very average".

We would kill for a guy like Buttler at 6.

 

[Front-Rower]

The first modern day batsman to master the art of rotating the strike will become the next with a 50+ Test average.

 

[herbert henry1908]

Since being recalled he averages 45 at 70. He's dragged down by a poor stretch in 2015 which lead to his dropping, but since then he has been rather a few rungs above the laughable assessment of "very average".

We would kill for a guy like Buttler at 6.

The recall is only 10 matches, it’s far safer to judge someone over their whole career. Many average cricketers have had good years.

I don’t think we can discount some T20 influence on the poor depth of our long form batting, I think it’s more than just that, though.

 

[Bazal]

The recall is only 10 matches, it’s far safer to judge someone over their whole career. Many average cricketers have had good years.

I don’t think we can discount some T20 influence on the poor depth of our long form batting, I think it’s more than just that, though.

Well by the same token, the only year he has averaged less than 40-odd was 2015.

He played 12 games, averaging 23 or something. If you can't judge him on ten games, you also can't judge him on 12.

Outside those 12 he averages 46 for the record.

 

[Timbo]

I think a bigger issue is that in CA’s ideal world - at least in the ideal world of their marketing team - five and one day cricket both go away.

They’d love the BBL to be a Major League Baseball of cricket - have it run for four months, have 16-20 teams, each team playing 30 odd matches.

It is definitely going to take a bigger place in the summer moving forward and it doesn’t matter how much the test team slides this will not change.

 

[herbert henry1908]

Well by the same token, the only year he has averaged less than 40-odd was 2015.

He played 12 games, averaging 23 or something. If you can't judge him on ten games, you also can't judge him on 12.

Outside those 12 he averages 46 for the record.

That’s why I’m judging him on his whole career.

If I was judging him on 2015 I wouldn’t have called him average, I would’ve called him poor.

 

[Twizzle]

I think a bigger issue is that in CA’s ideal world - at least in the ideal world of their marketing team - five and one day cricket both go away.
.

I know that the BBL currently finances CA but not too long ago there was no such thing as the BBL and CA still paid its bills and half of our team were on million dollar a year contracts. I'm talking 2001-2005 when players like McGrath, Warne, Punter et all were on over a million a year.

I really dont think they can keep using the excuse the BBL is a requirement to make the balance sheet look better.

 

[Bazal]

I know that the BBL currently finances CA but not too long ago there was no such thing as the BBL and CA still paid its bills and half of our team were on million dollar a year contracts. I'm talking 2001-2005 when players like McGrath, Warne, Punter et all were on over a million a year.

I really dont think they can keep using the excuse the BBL is a requirement to make the balance sheet look better.

Um.

In those days they'd sell out four days of every test match, just about. And the ODI series would have folks hanging off the rafters...

Things have changed

 

[Twizzle]

Um.

In those days they'd sell out four days of every test match, just about. And the ODI series would have folks hanging off the rafters...

Things have changed

yes agreed, and for the worst

its a bit of a chicken and egg scenario, they averaged 30K or something similar at the MCG for the third test instead of 50K+ or what ever they used to get, but who would pay good money to watch this lot bend over and surrender ?

we need to develop test cricketer, or batsmen to start to win games and get the crowds back

we basically all agree that Travis Head is a talent with serious technical issues but we should persevere with him

15 years ago, he would be lucky to get an ODI game and wouldn't even be in the test player discussion

CA seem to think the answer is 1000 coaches and hangers on and a very average performance manager, yet you can go through each one of our batsmen and all their technical faults are easy to pick, even watching Bancroft bat last night, 8 months later same technical fault in defending with the angled bat face and he lasted 3 balls, so what are we paying these batting coaches for again ?

And Handscomb doesn't even want to discuss his technique because from his POV there is nothing wrong with it.

I've read recently that they do not work on techniques, rather the stats and headspace and what ever their computer tells them. I dont know exactly what they do but we never had so many technical issues since we have increased our coaching staff by a gazillion.

Bring back Bob Simpson.

 

[Bazal]

yes agreed, and for the worst

its a bit of a chicken and egg scenario, they averaged 30K or something similar at the MCG for the third test instead of 50K+ or what ever they used to get, but who would pay good money to watch this lot bend over and surrender ?

we need to develop test cricketer, or batsmen to start to win games and get the crowds back

we basically all agree that Travis Head is a talent with serious technical issues but we should persevere with him

15 years ago, he would be lucky to get an ODI game and wouldn't even be in the test player discussion

CA seem to think the answer is 1000 coaches and hangers on and a very average performance manager, yet you can go through each one of our batsmen and all their technical faults are easy to pick, even watching Bancroft bat last night, 8 months later same technical fault in defending with the angled bat face and he lasted 3 balls, so what are we paying these batting coaches for again ?

And Handscomb doesn't even want to discuss his technique because from his POV there is nothing wrong with it.

I've read recently that they do not work on techniques, rather the stats and headspace and what ever their computer tells them. I dont know exactly what they do but we never had so many technical issues since we have increased our coaching staff by a gazillion.

Bring back Bob Simpson.

Well there are deeper problems than the quality of the cricket when it comes to crowd numbers, ones that CA can't control. Fact is people are increasingly time poor, and ODI crowds especially have been falling for years as a result of that. And there are factors they can control, too, like the cost being too high for eg, but the days of selling out every match of an ODI series or all sale days of a Test are over.

On the coaching, the problem isn't so much the number of coaches. It's the quality and the experience. What are Hick's qualifications? Does anyone know? He was a pretty handy (if very deficient) batsman, but that doesn't make him a good coach. What's the process for hiring these guys, and why are we hanging on to them for so long when it's clear they haven't performed to expectations?

I've always said technique is severely overrated, and I'm not going to get into it too much again, but the little things do matter. Keeping still, head over the ball and all that. These are the things that aren't being fixed.

Handscomb stopped playing off the front foot years ago for some reason, no one's sorted it.
Head could fix a lot of his issues by tightening up his back elbow, straightening his back lift and pressing towards the ball, but no one has sorted that.

It's not just a problem with the top echelons of cricket. This stuff extends right down to the bottom of the game too...and as much as people like to blame T20 cricket, we are really yet to see the first generation of players that have grown up playing T20 at a junior level, so the fact is these problems were likely there before they got to senior cricket.

 

[franklin2323]

Aust A playing along side the Test team is an easy fix.

Aside from Carey. I can't think of a player that would be in the A team that is outstanding in the BBL. so can't see it hurting it too much.

That way Renshaw and co get a hit playing for the longer form. Could play an A team or Ireland etc in say Manuka or grounds like that

 

[Bazal]

Anyway I've taken this off topic a bit...My bad

The fact is that the BBL will not move, and I doubt it will shorten. CA want it to be on every night, and rightly so. I would like to have more weekend double headers, but that won't shorten the season all that much anyway...I genuinely feel like the fix is simple.

Start the Shield in September. The JLT Cup started on Sept 16th this year, no real reason the Shield can't start then instead. This will, IMO, also help the batsmen develop; early season weather, greener, fresher wickets, more ball movement are all good things. That's also exactly a month before the Shield started this year (October 16th), which gives plenty of time to fit in the four games per side that are currently tacked on in March. Have the final the week before the BBL beings, in late December. This way you're playing at least the first three tests with players still playing Shield cricket recently, and there's a good lead in for the Test players to play a good chunk of Shield cricket.

BBL from late December as it is now.

JLT Cup in Feb/March to finish the season, running roughly alongside the international short form cricket...again, players can come from ODD cricket to ODI cricket if we need to make changes in the international side. Shorten it as well, play games more often

Beyond that, though, there are greater scheduling changes that will make a huge difference

-Use the Futures League better. Lengthen the competition and keep it running through the BBL. This is going to help in two ways; obviously, guys who aren't in the BBL can go back to a better quality competition than grade cricket, but it also gives more grade cricketers a chance to step up in place of some of the guys who might be in the BBL and play Futures League, have a stepping stone to potential state honours against state and Test level players.

-A tours. We need more of them, simple as that. We should be sending sides to the subcontinent and England and NZ and South Africa quite regularly. Give the next generation plenty of experience in all conditions, and use it to grow the game somewhat back home too. No reason we couldn't host Ireland/Afghanistan for some ODIs, some T20s, a one off test (on top of the main summer series) and three A side four day games for eg. You could run the A games early in the year, say January, into an ODI and T20 series in Feb and then a one off Test to finish the season at a smaller ground, Manuka or Bellerive or Dalton Park...

-Use County Cricket. We really should be putting as many blokes in County cricket as we can, and we should be trying to schedule our own matches so that we can. Obviously there are quotas and so forth, but there is no reason we couldn't have a chunk of a Test side over there any given year. The IPL is all well and good, but I would try and incentivise playing a season in County cricket here and there too. We should be supporting players who want to better their long form cricket more than the guys who head off to the IPL.

-Not so much a scheduling issue, but Grade cricket needs to be sorted out. Greg Chappell did a huge amount of damage to Australian cricket, and we need to sort it out and get the experienced heads sticking around in Grade cricket. That will go a long way towards helping young players develop their games

 

[Eelectrica]

There is so much dead time with the BBL scheduling though. Look how long its been since the Brisbane Heat played a BBL game. Definitely room for optimisation of the schedule.
I don't think the Australia A tour that was cancelled during the pay dispute has done any one any favours either.

 

[herbert henry1908]

Anyway I've taken this off topic a bit...My bad

The fact is that the BBL will not move, and I doubt it will shorten. CA want it to be on every night, and rightly so. I would like to have more weekend double headers, but that won't shorten the season all that much anyway...I genuinely feel like the fix is simple.

Start the Shield in September. The JLT Cup started on Sept 16th this year, no real reason the Shield can't start then instead. This will, IMO, also help the batsmen develop; early season weather, greener, fresher wickets, more ball movement are all good things. That's also exactly a month before the Shield started this year (October 16th), which gives plenty of time to fit in the four games per side that are currently tacked on in March. Have the final the week before the BBL beings, in late December. This way you're playing at least the first three tests with players still playing Shield cricket recently, and there's a good lead in for the Test players to play a good chunk of Shield cricket.

BBL from late December as it is now.

JLT Cup in Feb/March to finish the season, running roughly alongside the international short form cricket...again, players can come from ODD cricket to ODI cricket if we need to make changes in the international side. Shorten it as well, play games more often

Beyond that, though, there are greater scheduling changes that will make a huge difference

-Use the Futures League better. Lengthen the competition and keep it running through the BBL. This is going to help in two ways; obviously, guys who aren't in the BBL can go back to a better quality competition than grade cricket, but it also gives more grade cricketers a chance to step up in place of some of the guys who might be in the BBL and play Futures League, have a stepping stone to potential state honours against state and Test level players.

-A tours. We need more of them, simple as that. We should be sending sides to the subcontinent and England and NZ and South Africa quite regularly. Give the next generation plenty of experience in all conditions, and use it to grow the game somewhat back home too. No reason we couldn't host Ireland/Afghanistan for some ODIs, some T20s, a one off test (on top of the main summer series) and three A side four day games for eg. You could run the A games early in the year, say January, into an ODI and T20 series in Feb and then a one off Test to finish the season at a smaller ground, Manuka or Bellerive or Dalton Park...

-Use County Cricket. We really should be putting as many blokes in County cricket as we can, and we should be trying to schedule our own matches so that we can. Obviously there are quotas and so forth, but there is no reason we couldn't have a chunk of a Test side over there any given year. The IPL is all well and good, but I would try and incentivise playing a season in County cricket here and there too. We should be supporting players who want to better their long form cricket more than the guys who head off to the IPL.

-Not so much a scheduling issue, but Grade cricket needs to be sorted out. Greg Chappell did a huge amount of damage to Australian cricket, and we need to sort it out and get the experienced heads sticking around in Grade cricket. That will go a long way towards helping young players develop their games

Access to grounds in September would be the issue, particularly in the southern states.

My concern also would be that the conditions would be different to those we play our tests in, especially if even more matches are forced away from the big venues.



I come back to the fact the BBL’s big money raising ability is TV, not crowds. Moving BBL to Jan 10 start date would hurt crowds, it won’t hurt TV. If anything it may actually help TV ratings.

Plus you’d have the added bonus of possibly seeing some of the test stars play BBL.

At minimum Cricket Australia could easily move the BBL start date to the 26th, this would allow anothe shield round close to the Boxing Day test. Giving the selectors more options.


Agree on country cricket & futures league. I’d say for futures league it needs be to be less focussed on youth. Cricket is a sport you can debut later in life, there should be more 25-30 year olds in that format.

 

[herbert henry1908]

I don’t think there’s an understanding of how much TV money dwarfs gate money. It’s actually quite cheap to go to the BBL, I doubt they make a huge amount on the gate at all.

 

[Timbo]

Access to grounds in September would be the issue, particularly in the southern states.

My concern also would be that the conditions would be different to those we play our tests in, especially if even more matches are forced away from the big venues.



I come back to the fact the BBL’s big money raising ability is TV, not crowds. Moving BBL to Jan 10 start date would hurt crowds, it won’t hurt TV. If anything it may actually help TV ratings.

Plus you’d have the added bonus of possibly seeing some of the test stars play BBL.


Agree on country cricket & futures league. I’d say for futures league it needs be to be less focussed on youth. Cricket is a sport you can debut later in life, there should be more 25-30 year olds in that format.

The ground issue isn’t too bad - Melbourne has Junction Oval, the SACA has invested heavily in Glenelg Oval and the WACA ground is likely to be downsized to a centre of excellence. Queensland have AB Field and NSW have FC standard grounds aplenty.

 

[Bazal]

Access to grounds in September would be the issue, particularly in the southern states

Access isn't an issue for the ODDs in September, so I'm sure something could be sorted out. There are plenty of high quality regional and suburban grounds well up to the task of hosting a shield match and it's not like we're worried about crowd numbers.

Splitting the Shield is the worst thing CA have done. It really needs to be played in one hit.

My concern also would be that the conditions would be different to those we play our tests in, especially if even more matches are forced away from the big venues.

Good. I'm not sure how that's a problem? The more exposure players get to differing conditions, the better. We can't play anything that moves even slightly, we can't bat on pitches with bounce, or pitches that keep low. Hell, use the Duke ball for the first half instead of the second, make it really hoop around.

I come back to the fact the BBL’s big money raising ability is TV, not crowds. Moving BBL to Jan 10 start date would hurt crowds, it won’t hurt TV. If anything it may actually help TV ratings.

Plus you’d have the added bonus of possibly seeing some of the test stars play BBL.

The BBL will not move. It really is that simple.

You cannot ignore crowd figures, and even if it's only a small piece of the revenue for the competition it's a massive part of the competition all the same. People love to go to the game, especially, kids. If the BBL started on Jan 10 this season, approximately 30 matches including finals would be during school term in the ACT. 35 or more for parts of NSW.

It just doesn't make sense...

Agree on country cricket & futures league. I’d say for futures league it needs be to be less focussed on youth. Cricket is a sport you can debut later in life, there should be more 25-30 year olds in that format.

I'd entirely remove the age restriction for Futures League. Or at least have an age quota. Especially during the BBL, it's not really good enough only having grade cricket for the rest to play.

I don’t think there’s an understanding of how much TV money dwarfs gate money. It’s actually quite cheap to go to the BBL, I doubt they make a huge amount on the gate at all.

Well unless you know the figures, how can you say either way? If you were throwing away 15% of takings by moving it, then that's not justifiable.

FTR I don't know the figures, just that full stadiums are always a good thing and the BBL delivers quite a few of them. Tonight in Adelaide will no doubt be a sell out, or near to it, yet again.

But let's just make it about TV money for a second. This year we've had an Xmas Eve double header, a Boxing Day match directly after the Test, a New Years Eve Match, a New Years Day double header. Those matches compete with re-runs of Christmas movies, the news, and some fireworks coverage that gets worse every year. Maybe some reality TV. They sit in the deadest of dead spots for programming as literally the only thing worth watching on TV for a huge chunk of the population, and you've generally got a lot more people sitting around at home watching TV during the holiday period. The money the big matches like that make from TV would be huge...by moving to January 10 you lose that entirely. There's no way CA are going to throw that away. None.

 

[herbert henry1908]

The ground issue isn’t too bad - Melbourne has Junction Oval, the SACA has invested heavily in Glenelg Oval and the WACA ground is likely to be downsized to a centre of excellence. Queensland have AB Field and NSW have FC standard grounds aplenty.

They’d be juicy that early in the season, though. Plus no daylight savings yet so early starts on green wickets.

 

[herbert henry1908]

Access isn't an issue for the ODDs in September, so I'm sure something could be sorted out. There are plenty of high quality regional and suburban grounds well up to the task of hosting a shield match and it's not like we're worried about crowd numbers.

Most of the games were in northern states or WA, so you’re limiting the type of pitches they’d be playing on. Several of them were in Townsville. First game in Melbourne was in sept 26

Splitting the Shield is the worst thing CA have done. It really needs to be played in one hit.

Agreed

Good. I'm not sure how that's a problem? The more exposure players get to differing conditions, the better. We can't play anything that moves even slightly, we can't bat on pitches with bounce, or pitches that keep low. Hell, use the Duke ball for the first half instead of the second, make it really hoop around.

It’d be a problem if it skews too far. If you started them in early September you could potentially have 7/8 rounds done before November. So if you were to start them in September just the final week would be enough.

We don’t actually play many tests in those conditions. Ashes & NZ.

The BBL will not move. It really is that simple.

You cannot ignore crowd figures, and even if it's only a small piece of the revenue for the competition it's a massive part of the competition all the same. People love to go to the game, especially, kids. If the BBL started on Jan 10 this season, approximately 30 matches including finals would be during school term in the ACT. 35 or more for parts of NSW.

It just doesn't make sense...

The worst BBL crowds are actually the pre Xmas, you could easily move it to start on dec 26 without much drama.

I'd entirely remove the age restriction for Futures League. Or at least have an age quota. Especially during the BBL, it's not really good enough only having grade cricket for the rest to play.

Pretty much

Well unless you know the figures, how can you say either way? If you were throwing away 15% of takings by moving it, then that's not justifiable.

You can make a reasonable guess.

Last season the crowd average was 26k

Tickets go for as cheap as $42.50 for a family, $20 for an Adult.

I doubt the average would surpass $30 based on the seating map. So around 600k revenue per match.

But I’d say the revenue per match would be down this season, so we’d need to wait & see what the crowd average is.

FTR I don't know the figures, just that full stadiums are always a good thing and the BBL delivers quite a few of them. Tonight in Adelaide will no doubt be a sell out, or near to it, yet again.

But let's just make it about TV money for a second. This year we've had an Xmas Eve double header, a Boxing Day match directly after the Test, a New Years Eve Match, a New Years Day double header. Those matches compete with re-runs of Christmas movies, the news, and some fireworks coverage that gets worse every year. Maybe some reality TV. They sit in the deadest of dead spots for programming as literally the only thing worth watching on TV for a huge chunk of the population, and you've generally got a lot more people sitting around at home watching TV during the holiday period. The money the big matches like that make from TV would be huge...by moving to January 10 you lose that entirely. There's no way CA are going to throw that away. None.

Less people watch TV in the holiday period than in the ratings period, always been the case. People are away, doing things. TV ad revenue is lower as a result.

If more people watched TV during that period they’d put on better quality programming.

As mentioned above, at the least you could move the start date to December 26th. This would allow for an extra shield round in the middle of December, give the selectors more to go on for the two biggest test matches.

 

[franklin2323]

The ground issue isn’t too bad - Melbourne has Junction Oval, the SACA has invested heavily in Glenelg Oval and the WACA ground is likely to be downsized to a centre of excellence. Queensland have AB Field and NSW have FC standard grounds aplenty.

Regional areas too. BBL won't move but they need to find a way to get the fringe guys meaningful games.

Look at the situation now. We need changes even a 3 test A tour might have a guy with 200 odd runs ready to go