Sport

How the Big Bash League won me over

OK I’ll come clean. I’m a cricket snob… or at least I was.

Ever since I can remember I’ve loved watching cricket. I can still remember the first time I went to a match and discovered the pitch was much longer than it appeared when skewed by the angle of the TV cameras. In the early days, I liked the fast pace of One-Day cricket. It didn’t make sense to me that you could turn up and watch a full day’s play and not get a result. As I got older I started to understand the tactics and intricacies of Test Match cricket and fell in love with the longer format. I began to enjoy seeing a batsman playing and missing more than seeing a ball fly over the fence for six. I took delight at watching a tail-end batsman blocking ball after ball to force a gruelling 5-day draw. And then Twenty20 cricket turned up.

Now known simply as T20, it was the new, young, fresh and action packed version of ‘cricket’. I say ‘cricket’ because at first I felt like this wasn’t cricket at all but rather a hit-and-giggle, tainted version of the sport I loved. I felt like it was ignoring its real fans and modelling itself to try to attract people that didn’t even like cricket, selling out even. I hated T20 with all my heart and I just hoped that it wouldn’t succeed.

Like a Melbournian when an out-of-towner says they had a coffee at Starbucks, I scoffed at people when they said they watched it. They didn’t know cricket and they didn’t deserve my time of day.

When the Big Bash League started in 2011 however, everything changed. Not only did I finally accept the format was here to stay, I actually started to enjoy it. The Big Bash League showed me that short-format cricket had plenty of benefits. I could get home at 6:30pm on a week day, flick on the TV and watch a complete match before bed. I could get down to Etihad Stadium and not only be assured the match wouldn’t be ruined by rain delays, but also that I wouldn’t walk home crippled thanks to sitting down for eight hours straight.

I still love test match cricket and that will never change, but I’ve come to appreciate what T20 brings to the table. It’s a quick shot of cricket when you need it most. With the AFL season over, I cannot wait for BBL04 to begin. Go the Brisbane Heat!

General public tickets for the Big Bash League are now on sale.

Click here for tickets to Melbourne Renegades matches at Etihad Stadium.

Click here for tickets to Brisbane Heat at the Gabba.

Click here for tickets to the Perth Scorchers at the WACA.

International Cricket Tickets

Click here to purchase tickets for International Cricket at the Gabba and WACA throughout the 2014/15 Summer of Cricket.