Big Bash League: New fixture to kick off in Tasmania and Canberra

The Big Bash League will become a travelling roadshow this summer, starting with a series of games in Tasmania and the ACT. Check out the new fixture.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - OCTOBER 19: The HD Turf Group created a good luck message on the MCG to the two competing AFL Grand Final teams with a new technology called TurfPrint, on an empty Melbourne Cricket Ground, where the AFL Grand Final is traditionally held, this year being moved to the Gabba due to Covid-19 restrictions, at MCG on October 19, 2020 in Melbourne, Australia

Fears of a full season in Big Bash hubs are easing as coronavirus numbers dwindle but Tasmania and the ACT have been chosen as host cities for a delayed start to the tournament.

A December 10 opener has been locked in for the 10th staging of the event and venues will be as much as 50 per cent filled for the opening rounds in a boost for cricket fans.

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It comes after a turbulent few months with Cricket Australia embroiled in an ugly feud with broadcaster Channel 7 over the quality of the BBL.

Aussie star Steve Smith last week ruled himself out of playing with a loaded international schedule, David Warner is out again, Josh Hazlewood is unlikely to play for Sydney Sixers and Pat Cummins will skip it as well.

Hobart will form a key pillar of the early rounds of BBL10.

The early matches of the tournament could also be without key international players with several English marquee men, including batsman Jason Roy who has signed with the Perth Scorchers, called up for a white-ball series against South Africa.

The Hurricanes will open the season against the Sydney Sixers in Hobart as part of eight games across 10 days in Tasmania with five at Manuka Oval in Canberra,

Crowds will be capped at 50 per cent of each venue’s capacity in keeping with COVID-19 guidelines.

Canberra’s Manuka Oval will host a series of early games.

The Melbourne Stars will then play back-to-back games at Manuka Oval as games two and three, with more games at the Gabba, Metricon Stadium on the Gold Coast and then the Adelaide Oval at the back end of December.

OFFICIAL | It's a new-look #BBL10 fixture! 🤗

More details to come on Jan-Feb, but you can check out ALL the match-ups & dates here 👉 https://t.co/qgkj6iyQx3 pic.twitter.com/704nA2qzs8

— KFC Big Bash League (@BBL) November 4, 2020

While the MCG looms as the potential home for the Big Bash final, it won’t see any games before Christmas despite the border between NSW and Victoria opening on November 23.

Dates and times have been locked in for the entire tournament, but organisers haven’t nominated venues for those matches hoping state borders can open to allow games in Melbourne and Perth.

CA is intent on taking the BBL west to Perth given the state has been denied any international cricket this summer due to the state government‘s stance on its border.

Western Australia recently announced it will remove its hard border policy from November 14, shifting to what Premier Mark McGowan termed “a controlled interstate border”.

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Are Warner and Cummins cooked?

- Peter Lalor

David Warner and Pat Cummins are among Australian cricket’s greatest concerns this summer and it is likely they will number among the players who do not play every game after enduring a tough IPL campaign.

A tired Warner rolled up his sleeves and slogged his Hyderabad IPL side out of a slump and into the finals on Wednesday morning.

Kolkata Knight Riders’ Cummins has taken his $3m and moved poolside to sit out a secondary quarantine in the UAE with other Australians out of the finals. If the side Warner captains had lost he would have joined them. The plane does not leave until next Thursday.

David Warner smashed his team into the IPL finals.

Steve Smith, Glenn Maxwell, Josh Hazlewood and James Pattinson are also waiting for that flight when the tournament is done.

Cricket Australia has sent a support crew to ensure everything runs smoothly and the redundant players get in as much training as possible.

Players are, however, reportedly “cooked” from a combination of the intense physical effort of playing in the UAE heat and the equally intense environment inside the biosecurity bubbles.

Saving Privates Warner and Cummins is an issue of highest importance and one keenly discussed long before next month’s first match against India.

In March 2018 a tired Australian side shamed itself in South Africa. A deep dive into the reasons for that event unearthed cultural problems in the halls of Australian cricket.

It was, equally, obvious to some observers that the exhausted mental state of certain characters, but mostly Warner, was a contributing factor.

That summer a distracted Warner had turned up to one-day training in Melbourne having left his kit behind in Sydney.

Pat Cummins may have to face a period of rest this summer.

Despite this Warner was left behind to play in and lead the T20 team while the rest gained some sense of balance by preparing quietly in South Africa. He then dashed over, shook off jet lag and fixed what was left of his energy on engaging in a series of bar room brawls with a South African team spoiling for a fight.

By that time Warner’s plight was not so much tracking Private Ryan as Kurtz in the Heart of Darkness.

The public may have little sympathy for players who have opted to take the millions on offer at the IPL but cricket must accept the reality that they have and that they will be exhausted.

What’s cricket to do: flog Warner, Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Steve Smith — and to a lesser degree limited over specialists Glenn Maxwell, Adam Zampa and Aaron Finch — without regard to their wellbeing?

Hazlewood, who is probably deemed as being not so essential in the limited-overs formats, indicated he may have to skip some of that series against India to prepare for the Tests.

“You always want to be available to play for Australia whenever that is but if it comes at the expense of (preparing for) a Test series then you’ve got to weigh up those options,” Hazlewood said on The Unplayable Podcast.

“Cricket is cricket and if you’re playing one-day cricket, T20 cricket, at least the intensity is there and it’s about having those big (training) days.

Josh Hazlewood is focused on the Test series.

“It’s a challenge, but we’ll see what happens.”

Hazlewood believes one good hitout in a tour match will see the bowlers ready but that exercise reduces any opportunity they have for rest.

Australian cricket has proved critical again to the success of the Indian Premier League. Four teams have qualified for the finals and all four are lead in one way or another by people from these parts.

Andrew McDonald, Justin Langer’s right-hand man, has coached his Mumbai team to the top of the table — a side that includes bowler James Pattinson.

Mumbai meets Ricky Ponting’s Delhi in the first final late Thursday night (EDT).

Warner’s Hyderabad side plays the Simon Katich-coached Bangalore outfit 24 hours later.

Ponting has only employed the talents of Australia’s ODI and T20 keeper Alex Carey in three matches.

Aaron Finch was recently dropped from his IPL team.

Katich’s side has dropped Aaron Finch and replaced him with Josh Philippe which is interesting given the latter is not in the limited-over squads that play India next month and the former is captain of both the ODI and T20 side.

T20 is a fickle game and never more so than in the intensity of the IPL. Nobody in Australia is concerned with Finch’s fate or form.

On return the IPL players enter quarantine at Sydney’s Olympic Park and will serve two weeks separated from the rest of the squad. The team will only meet one day before the first game on November 27 at the SCG.

McDonald and Ponting will be available to assist with training.

If the WBBL is any indication the quarantine for the side during the white-ball series will be strict. The women play basketball behind temporary cyclone fences which block the entrance and exit from their hotel at the former Olympic site.

When and how any player is allowed to return home to see their family remains a concern to all with suggestions families will have to quarantine before joining the Test side and only be allowed minimal movements outside the team hotel.

Originally published as Big Bash League: New fixture to kick off in Tasmania and Canberra