Cricket Australia has moved additional away from a Christmas Day Big Bash League match, as an alternative scrapping the December 24 fixture off their calendar.
BBL officers revealed their calendar for the 2023-24 season on Thursday, with Brisbane to open the event after they host the Melbourne Stars on December 7.
Seven matches can be performed in the course of the opening week of the competitors, earlier than the competitors breaks for 5 nights in the course of the Perth Test involving Pakistan because of timezone clashes.
The remainder of the event will then function beside the Test summer time, with the grand last to be performed on January 24 on the day earlier than the Gabba day-night Test towards West Indies begins.
The discount of regular-season matches from 56 to 40 means all however three video games can be performed in primetime, whereas the finals have been simplified to a four-game top-four system.
But probably the most attention-grabbing aspect is round Christmas.
Cricket has toyed with the thought of enjoying on Christmas Day for almost all of the event’s 12-year historical past, and launched Christmas Eve video games in 2019.
Speculation round the potential for a December 25 fixture elevated final yr, when the NBL performed on the day for the primary time and attracted its highest scores with 300,000 viewers.
Cricket officers are recognized to have watched these numbers with curiosity, and can once more pay shut consideration to how the NBL fare this summer time with two video games on the date.
But in the end they’ve opted once more enjoying on Christmas Day for now, whereas additionally transferring away from December 24 which has historically been hosted by Hobart.
“There are some inherit challenges with Christmas Eve around travel availability and scheduling of that game,” BBL boss Alistair Dobson mentioned.
“A December 23 game for the Hurricanes is something they will build up and continue that tradition.
“Christmas Day is one that’s usually raised. In the season we now have with 40 video games and the power to schedule our video games in the perfect spots, we have not seen the necessity to schedule a Christmas Day sport.
“It’s not something we have a firm policy on one way or another … If in future seasons it looked like one for us to explore, we would work with our stakeholders on that.”
Dobson can also be hopeful the sooner begin to the event, compelled largely by the Perth Test, will assist appeal to worldwide expertise by way of the draft for a larger portion of the competitors.
There is theoretically a larger hole within the franchise schedule round that point, earlier than the South Africa T20 and ILT20 are anticipated to start out in mid-January.
“Starting a week earlier is a great opportunity for players to come and play most, if not all, of the BBL season again. We are optimistic of that,” Dobson mentioned.
2023-24 BBL KEY DATES
Season opener: Brisbane Heat v Melbourne Stars, December 7
Perth Test break: December 14-18
Christmas break: December 24-25
Major semi: January 19
Minor semi: January 20
Preliminary last: January 22
Final: January 24
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
