SuperCoach BBL: When teams are on byes, who has double rounds, and international disruption – what you need to know for planning your season
It’s a whole new ball game in SuperCoach BBL this season, with an extra round of finals set to make for new challenges. As always, there are bye rounds to negotiate and, as always, there’s teams playing multiple times per round to use to your scoring advantage.
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It’s a whole new ball game in SuperCoach BBL this season, with an extra round of finals set to make for new challenges.
As always, there are bye rounds to negotiate and, as always, there’s teams playing multiple times per round to use to your scoring advantage.
SuperCoach BBL is open – register now!
HOW IT WORKS IN BBL|09
The season expands this year, with an additional round of finals games.
In addition to the 56 home and away games, there will be five finals, with the decider to be played on Saturday, February 8.
The system will allow for a double-chance for the top two teams, following yet another year where the team that finished as the minor premiers was knocked out in the semi-finals.
On only one occasion has the first placed team at the end of the regular season lifted the trophy, with six out of the eight minor premiers bundled out before the final game of the season.
BBL|09 Finals format:
The Eliminator – Thursday 30 January – 4th vs 5th
The Qualifier – Friday 31 January – 1st vs 2nd
The Knockout – Saturday 1 February – 3rd vs winner of The Eliminator
The Challenger – Thursday 6 February – Loser of the Qualifier vs winner of The Knockout
The Final – Saturday 8 February – Winner of the Qualifier vs the winner of the Challenger
SUPERCOACH LEAGUE STRUCTURE: 14 TEAM LEAGUE
Last year, the league structure was based on head-to-head match-ups across the first 13 Rounds, before semi-finals in Rd 14 (with first placed in a league playing fourth, and second playing third), before the final in Round 15 featuring the winner of those two match-ups.
This raft of changes made to the structure of the BBL|09 season means that the SuperCoach BBL|09 season expands to 17 rounds this year.
For standard 14-team leagues, head-to-head competitions kick off immediately in Round 1, with everyone playing each other once up to and including Round 13.
MORE SUPERCOACH BBL NEWS:
> Tom Sangster’s Cheapie Bible
> SuperCoach BBL: An L-plate guide
> Shane Warne’s star-studded SuperCoach team
This year we are going with a three-round finals series. When Round 14 kicks off it’ll be the first versus second to guarantee a place in the final, and third and fourth taking each other on in an elimination final.
From there, the loser of the qualifying final plays the winner of the elimination final in Round 15, before they take on the winner of the qualifier in Round 16 to close out the league season.
This means there is no SuperCoach BBL League Play in Round 17 (the final round of the year), but that will still count towards people’s overall scores in the competition as well as any ‘open groups’ that have been set up.
SuperCoach BBL is open – register now!
SUPERCOACH LEAGUE STRUCTURE: 6 TEAM LEAGUE
For the smaller six-team custom leagues, everyone plays each other twice over the first ten rounds, before the 3 round finals series is conducted over the final three round-robin rounds of the season in the same finals format as the 14 team league.
BYE ROUND PLANNING
The big thing you need to know is that, in SC BBL|09, two teams have no byes this year, with only three having multiple bye rounds:
Adelaide Strikers – Rounds 1 and 5
Brisbane Heat – Round 3
Hobart Hurricanes – no bye
Melbourne Renegades – Round 10
Melbourne Stars – Round 6
Perth Scorchers – Rounds 5 and 7
Sydney Sixers – Round 4 and 9
Sydney Thunder – no bye
Essentially, if you pick Hurricanes and Thunder players, you can use them as set-and-forget (injury and international call-up dependent, of course) mainstays of your SuperCoach BBL squad, as they have no byes for the entirely of the BBL|09 season.
By contrast, those thinking of starting with a host of Strikers – such as Rashid Khan, Alex Carey, or Billy Stanlake – might want to think again, as they have two byes in the first handful of rounds, meaning that you’ll be juggling their availability throughout the season.
Similarly, the Perth Scorchers have byes in even closer proximity, with two in the space of three rounds.
DOUBLE DELIGHTS
When it comes to players from teams being eligible to earn double points in Rounds, it’s an absolute bounty of scoring potential this year, with three sides having THREE double rounds:
Adelaide Strikers – Rounds 3, 4, and 12
Brisbane Heat – Rounds 1 and 13
Hobart Hurricanes – Round 12
Melbourne Renegades – Rounds 5 and 13
Melbourne Stars – Rounds 5 and 7
Perth Scorchers – Rounds 3, 6, and 9
Sydney Sixers – Rounds 1, 3, and 10
Sydney Thunder – Round 1
SuperCoach BBL is open – register now!
In between their two byes, the Strikers have two bites at the cherry twice, with back-to-back double rounds early in the season. The Melbourne Stars, Perth Scorchers, and Sydney Sixers also have bye rounds in close proximity to one another.
Alongside the Strikers, the latter two also have three double rounds, with the Sixers players undoubtedly set to be very tempting, with two of their double rounds in the first three rounds. Come on down Tom Curran, Sean Abbott, Josh Phillipe, and Daniel Hughes – your time to shine is early on in the season.
INTERNATIONAL COMMITMENTS
This summer, Australia is scheduled to play five Test matches, with only the final two of the three-match Trans-Tasman Trophy likely to affect Big Bash commitments for those called up to represent their country, with the first Test scheduled in Perth before the commencement of the BBL|09 season.
The traditional Boxing Day Test and New Year’s Test in Melbourne and Sydney respectively will likely see the biggest cricketing stars otherwise occupied.
The One Day International squad will then depart for a three-match series against India from January 14 to 19, meaning that they will – in all likelihood – be unavailable for the majority of the first month of 2020.
After that, however, the calendar is wide open for the biggest stars of the game to represent their Big Bash clubs for the first time in some time.
Meanwhile, internationally, India is hosting the West Indies in early December in a One Day Series, and while the Indians are not permitted by the BCCI to participate in domestic T20 competitions outside of the IPL, it means that the best short-form West Indian players will not be available for the first part of the BBL|09 season, as they then return home to host Ireland in a three-game series.
South Africa is hosting England in a four-match Test series throughout the same period as the BBL season, before they play a trio of ODI matches as well and then a further three T20 matches just as the BBL|09 series comes to a conclusion.
What’s more, the Bangladesh Premier League is once more scheduled in conflict with the Big Bash League. In 2019-20 it will run from December 6, 2019 to January 11, 2020. Last season, possible BBL|09 players suited up in the competition: Steve Smith played for Comilla Victorians, West Indians Kieron Pollard and Andre Russell for Dhaka Dynamites, Afghani Qais Ahmad for Rajshahi Kings, Englishman Alex Hale for Rangpur Riders, and both David Warner and Sandeep Lamichhane for Sylhet Sixers.
MORE SUPERCOACH BBL NEWS:
> How do your players earn points?
> SuperCoach BBL is back for the BBL|09 season
> Star-studded: Big Bash squads for 2019-20
SuperCoach BBL is open – register now!
Originally published as SuperCoach BBL: When teams are on byes, who has double rounds, and international disruption – what you need to know for planning your season
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