Does English Vitality Blast form translate to Big Bash League success?
The world’s best Twenty20 cricketers travel the globe in search of success, featuring in countries such as England, India and Australia. Does form translate from one continent to the other?
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From Australia to England and the Caribbean to India, there is no shortage of quality Twenty20 competitions for the world’s best short-form players to feature in.
This year’s Indian Premier League took place from March-May, making it hard to draw any obvious correlation between IPL form and potential Big Bash League output.
However, the recent Caribbean Premier League and England’s Vitality Blast provide a formline for coaches to consider when choosing their SuperCoach BBL teams.
The CPL wrapped up last month and involved BBL players including Renegades seamer Harry Gurney, Thunder batsman Alex Hales and Stars spinner Sandeep Lammichhane.
The Vitality Blast finished in late September and a host of Englishmen who were involved in the tournament have committed to BBL clubs.
The Mzansi Super League in South Africa also started in recent days and will involve 10 BBL-contracted players.
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Tom Banton (Brisbane Heat) is the pick of the fantasy prospects after clubbing 549 runs at 42.2 and being crowned England’s young cricketer of the year.
Banton will feature in the first eight games of the BBL before being replaced by South African star AB De Villiers.
While Banton’s starting price of $125,000 and English T20 record will tempt coaches, it is worth considering how other English players who have dominated their home tournament have fared in Australia.
Test opener Joe Denly has been one of the most dominant players in the Vitality Blast in the past two seasons, compiling 976 runs at 40.6 and taking 22 wickets.
His impact in 11 games for Sydney Sixers was much less spectacular.
Denly made 148 of his 283 runs for the Sixers in two innings and only captured two wickets from 11 appearances.
The right-hander has been far from the only player to struggle in Australia after flourishing in England, with BBL imports in particular susceptible to a form plunge.
South African Colin Ingram averaged 53.8 in England last year and 30.3 for Adelaide Strikers, while all-rounder David Willey amassed 386 runs in the Vitality Blast and just 29 runs in seven games for Perth Scorchers.
Willey only had three opportunities to prove himself in the top order in 2018-19, opening once and twice batting at No. 3 for returns of
He did not bat in three games and came in at No. 7 in his other match.
Willey’s diminished role represents a warning for those inclined to look purely at statistics when deciding their final team.
While Denly was a prominent bowler for Kent and Willey has batted in the top-three for Yorkshire, they were signed by BBL teams where they were rarely required with bat or ball respectively.
Sam Whiteman, Michael Klinger, Josh Inglis, Will Bosisto and Cam Bancroft were more regular batsmen at the top of Perth’s batting line-up, while Steve O’Keefe, Ben Manenti and Lloyd Pope were preferred to Denly with the ball by the Sixers.
There have been players who have bucked the trend by performing in both tournaments, such as Jofra Archer (22 wickets and 18 in BBL08), Callum Ferguson (390 runs and 442 in BBL08) and Rashid Khan (17 wickets and 19 in BBL08).
Doing your homework by studying recent T20 tournaments can be valuable.
However, history has told us form can be fickle in Twenty20 cricket.
Some internationals have arrived in Australia with sterling reputations, only for their impact to be limited by injuries, role or their team struggling.
Consider the form, but past seasons of BBL will provide a more valuable history than more recent T20 competitions played in foreign conditions.
Players such as Shaun Marsh, D’Arcy Short and Ben Laughlin have rarely failed in the BBL and have been popular SuperCoach selections as a result.
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Originally published as Does English Vitality Blast form translate to Big Bash League success?
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