‘Such a long tournament’: Cricket Australia, WBBL clubs debate ideal length of season

Cricket Australia has been on a mission to grow the women’s game for many years. But there is a good reason why a shorter WBBL season makes sense.

Is the WBBL season too long? Picture: Mark Kolbe/Getty Images

At one level it seems crazy. After decades of underfunding and lack of opportunity, how can it be that there is momentum for an elite women’s sporting competition to shrink?

Particularly in a league widely viewed as leading the way both domestically, compared to other sports, and internationally, compared to other cricket events.

And yet as the Women’s Big Bash League turns to the start of its ninth season, key stakeholders are debating whether to cut the league from its traditional structure of a double robin format – in which each team plays 14 regular season games – plus finals.

When the WBBL was introduced in 2015, it was a game changer. The WNBL had been around for more than 30 years and the W-League was established but cricket beat the AFL and NRL to the punch by establishing sister teams for its men’s Big Bash clubs.

Significantly, and in contrast to pretty much every national women’s sporting league, the WBBL was from the outset almost double the size of the BBL, which only went to a full home and away schedule in 2018-19 and has since reverted back to a 10-match per team regular season.

Alana King became a regular for Australia in all three formats after starring in the WBBL. Picture: Will Russell/Getty Images

At one level this made plenty of sense. Unlike the men’s game, the women’s cricket calendar was closer to barren than congested. There was (and still is) very little women’s Test cricket, no multi-day women’s domestic cricket, and there was no short-form franchise circuit to speak of.

Blocking out the best part of a couple of months for the world’s top female players was not a huge imposition in relative terms. The WBBL was the biggest annual event in women’s cricket, and players could build their years around it.

But the landscape has changed swiftly. England’s Hundred, India’s Women’s Premier League (WPL) and the Caribbean Premier League have all arrived since 2021. Teams are starting to play a bit more Test cricket too. And the 50-over Women’s National Cricket League has also expanded from eight to 12 regular season matches per team.

It’s still nowhere near as busy as the men’s schedule, but the top female players are starting to feel the pinch.

Before the WBBL schedule was announced this year, Cricket Australia toyed with the idea of cutting the competition back to 10 games per team, which would bring it back into line with the men. Ultimately CA stuck with the status quo for now, but there are no guarantees beyond this season.

Cricket Australia must juggle the demands of players, clubs, broadcasters, fans and others. Picture: Matt King/Getty Images

Sydney Sixers and Australian all-rounder Ash Gardner, who fetched more than any other Aussie at the inaugural WPL auction earlier this year, is a supporter of trimming the WBBL back to a 10-match season per side. However she accepts there would need to be a trade-off for players who don’t play as much as she does.

“Ten round games with finals is probably ideal,” Gardner says.

“If you ask an international player, they’re probably going to give you a different response to a domestic player. Obviously as international cricketers our schedule is pretty full on. So I think we would like for it to be shortened.

“But in saying that, I think from a domestic point of view, they need to then have something that substitutes. So whether that’s like a – go up to Darwin or something in June or July and play like a round robin T20 League, like they’re doing up in Brisbane with T20 Max.

“Something like that, which then substitutes those games. I think that would be the only option if they were to take games out of the Big Bash.”

In one respect, Gardner can’t quite believe this is even a conversation, given that the professionalisation of women’s cricket in this country is only an advent of the past decade.

Ash Gardner has watched women’s cricket evolve throughout her career. Picture: Phil Hillyard

“It's crazy to think back when I started playing for NSW, we were barely playing. So it’s a pretty exciting prospect. And as an international cricketer, obviously, we play a lot. And then now with all the international franchise leagues around the world, there’s also that option too. So there is a lot of cricket to be played. That’s slowly turning into what the men are doing. Obviously, we’re not away nearly as much but it’s certainly going down that path.

“And I also think it’s important for other international cricketers that come over. Because it is such a long tournament and a lot of the time that’s in the off-season, or it’s in their pre-season. So that’s another event for them to come over and to do that, too. So yeah, there’s a lot of time away from home. So ideally, it would be shorter for those players.”

Jess Jonassen shares a similar sentiment to her Australian teammate. The Brisbane Heat captain, and the record holder for most WBBL games, believes a shorter season is the only way forward.

“I think 10 games is probably the right amount,” Jonassen said.

“We‘ll see the impact of 10 games, what that has in the BBL competition and whether that transfers down into the WBBL.

“I hope we don’t go down the path where as an Australian player, I’m going to miss WBBL games because I love this competition and I love the domestic competitions.

“With the congestion of the international schedule, it could result in some international players and some of the best players not being part of it if it remains as long as it is.

“So we’ll see what those changes bring and hopefully, it’s a positive thing.”

At 34, New Zealand all-rounder and Perth Scorchers captain Sophie Devine has been a WBBL player for half her life.

But only in recent years has she been able to capitalise in the commercial explosion of women’s cricket. Since August, Devine has headed from the UK to the Caribbean to Perth to South Africa before arriving in Australia for the WBBL season.

Grateful for her opportunities, she hopes women’s cricket learns from the burnout factor that has long plagued the men’s game.

199-run unbeaten opening stand 🤯

Before the @SixersBBL take on the Stars in the season opener, relive a record-breaking partnership from Alyssa Healy and Ellyse Perry! #WBBL09pic.twitter.com/nAOLeAKpv3

— Weber Women's Big Bash League (@WBBL) October 13, 2023

“It’s been really interesting for me, I guess having played for quite a while now,” Devine says.

“Seeing the growth over the last couple of years in particular, I think it’s something that the women’s game has been really fortunate to have … to see the path that the men’s game has gone down.

“It does feel like it’s probably coming to a head a little bit.

“It’s certainly it’s going to have to be looked at seriously by Cricket Australia. I think, you know, the WBBL for me has been one of the premier interest tournaments for a long, long time now.

“But I guess the introduction of the WPL and The Hundred and now tournaments like the CPL, the PSL had a couple of exhibition games last year. It’s getting tough to squeeze it in and if you want to keep pulling in the best players from around the world, you’ve got to offer an experience that they can be there and that they can commit to.”

It’s understood there has been pushback at club and state level about the idea of a reduced WBBL, with legitimate concerns about limiting the league’s footprint when Big Bash clubs remain focused on growth.

These are the competing interests that CA must navigate.

Originally published as ‘Such a long tournament’: Cricket Australia, WBBL clubs debate ideal length of season