What the Big Bash League needs it can’t have

David Warner is unlikely ever to play another Big Bash League game

David Warner is just what the Big Bash League needs. Warner has not played a BBL match since December 2013 and is unlikely to ever play another.

It’s apparently “family time” and anyway he’s going to get a motza in the new UAE T20 league on top of his IPL millions, but they’re not the only reasons he has no plans to darken the BBL’s door.

On Thursday the domestic T20 league secured the services of Faf du Plessis for a brief part of next summer’s competition.

The “for a short time only” offer designed to attract overseas players for cameo appearances has made the best of a difficult situation.

But what the BBL really needs is Warner — and his Australian teammates.

On the same day Faf became the first “marquee nomination” for the new draft system, the Seven Network lodged documents in the Federal Court suing Cricket Australia for breach of contract and seeking to terminate its six-year $450m broadcast deal.

They’ve essentially filed for divorce on the grounds of infidelity.

Seven, which has the free-to-air cricket rights, loves the Test match content, but alleges the BBL is a lemon and they’re not alone in that thinking. Ratings have fallen alarmingly and were doing so before Covid. Same with crowds. Someone has cooked the golden goose which out-rated the tennis and drew a million viewers per match when it was on Channel 10.

CA seem to admit as much by getting in consultants twice in recent years to identify issues.

The thing that really upsets Seven is that the BBL has to compete for attention with Australia’s international matches and is treated as a second-class citizen.

The case hangs off a clause in the contract in which the administration agrees to “organise matches on average across a season to a quality and a standard that is at least equal to the highest quality and standard for such matches”.

Seven alleges that the BBL is not that and goes on to make a number of unflattering comparisons with the IPL while listing examples of the domestic league’s priorities taking a back seat to Australia’s international fixtures.

The IPL would never dream of putting on an international fixture during its own tournament and is even granted clean air by all the other nations, including Australia.

Australia, on the other hand, schedules international fixtures featuring its biggest players during the BBL.

That irony is not lost on the broadcaster, but one of the things that really got their goat was the decision to send the white-ball team to, wait for it, India for an ODI series during the 2019-20 BBL.

That series was broadcast by Fox Cricket, who also have BBL rights.

Steve Smith (Sixers), Adam Zampa (Stars) Aaron Finch (Renegades), Alex Carey (Strikers), Ashton Agar (Scorchers), Peter Handscomb (Stars), Marnus Labuschagne (Heat), Kane Richardson (Renegades), D’Arcy Short (Hurricanes) and Ashton Turner (Scorchers) were all in India when the BBL was on.

Warner played too. Warner is a highly valued player in all formats, but demands millions from the Indian franchises for his services.

Warner won’t have a bar of the BBL.

One of the issues is money. Seven point out in its comparison of the two tournaments that the salary cap for sides in the BBL is around $1.8m where the salary cap for an IPL franchise is around $17m.

Warner earns more in the IPL than the entire salary cap of a BBL team.

The issue, here, however is not just money. Privately the opener is still upset at being targeted for punishment — the harshest punishment — in the sandpaper affair. If CA believe he is unfit to ever lead an Australian team again, then why would Warner ever want to play in its low-paying domestic tournament?

That, however, is not Seven’s primary concern as it goes on to list all manner of unflattering comparisons between the BBL and the IPL, and all manner of moves by CA that trip up its own tournament by scheduling international fixtures against it and treating it as a secondary priority.

Purists will praise CA for placing its international games ahead of a domestic T20 event, but they didn’t pay overs for the rights.

The broadcaster and CA both wanted the 2020-21 summer’s BBL to kick off on the same day as the first men’s Test so that even if the event was denied the local stars it had the international game as a lead-in for the ratings.

When things became complicated and other options were presented, the BBL general manager Alistair Dobson said in an internal email it would an “unmitigated disaster” if the two events were not aligned.

Seven claim they were repeatedly assured the first BBL game would coincide with the first day of the Test, but weren’t told when plans changed. The season launch did not align.

The summer and the tournament was disrupted by Covid and the fixtures were a mess. Games scheduled in the back blocks of Tasmania failed to attract fans and were a sorry spectacle.

The next summer England were here and the BBL found itself bleeding key players at one point for an Australia A match against England.

Much has been said about the state’s blocking Steve Smith playing in the last few games of the year and the broadcasters note that while also noting that because of the pandemic an assistant coach, grade cricketers, a schoolteacher and a couple of rookies were called on to make up numbers while Justin Avendano played for two teams in the same summer.

When the BBL was on Channel 10 it was attracting a million viewers a night. When it tentatively expanded at the back end of the deal, that network noted the audience dropped dramatically for those extra games and warned CA.

Crowds dropped too, but the tournament was fattened further for a broadcast deal that split its rights between digital and free-to-air.

Nobody but the people responsible for the expansion will tell you it was a good thing.

Fly-in-fly-out internationals will help a bit, but if the BBL is to prosper it needs domestic stars available for the tournament. Purists be warned, because that means another hole in the international calendar after the one for the IPL.

As for getting Warner in, well, good luck with that.