It’s because it is the continuation of the Women’s Ashes series.
I’m aware, it was just strange. Was before every Test in the men’s. Confused and surprised the Seven team as well.
You would think they would make a bit more of an event out of these games and play the anthems but obviously not.
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Australian Cricket Awards will be announced (held?) during the lunch break tomorrow of the Women’s Ashes Test.
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There is no mention of this year’s awards (not even a preview) at the CA website.
EDIT: according to Foxtel’s online guide, the Australian Cricket Awards will indeed be shown live on Fox Cricket during the lunch break of Women’s Ashes test on Saturday.
It will be the second year in a row that the awards are held as a recorded, virtual event due to COVID.
EDIT 2: some award winners were announced today.
Male Domestic Player of the Year – Travis Head
Bradman Young Cricketer of the Year – Tim Ward
Female Domestic Player of the Year – Elyse Villani
Betty Wilson Young Cricketer of the Year – Darcie Brown
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Perth Scorchers have become the first team to claim four Big Bash League titles, thrashing Sydney Sixers by 79 runs in tonight’s final at Marvel Stadium and gaining revenge for last year’s loss at the SCG. The Sixers (who were looking for a three-peat) reduced the Scorchers to 4/25 at the end of 6th over, before Scorchers captain Ashton Turner and Laurie Evans (player of the match) led the revival with a 104-run fifth wicket stand. The undermanned Sixers put up little resistance, folding for 92, with the wickets shared around six bowlers.
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Simple awesome 17 games away from
Perth 
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Fantastic season. Perth is the WBBL/BBL 2021-22 champions
If they’re doing that Then it must be a very scaled-down version. Isn’t the CA awards normally 1-1 and 1/2 hours?
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Last year’s awards (shown on Seven and Fox Cricket on February 6 ahead of the BBL final between Sixers and Scorchers) were also 30 minutes.
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That was better advertised though. This one, I had no idea it was even on until I saw announcements of winners made on social media
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TV ratings revealed this morning showed both FTA and pay TV audiences for the BBL final between Sixers and Scorchers were well down on last year’s decider between the same two teams.
This BBL season had largely been impacted by COVID with all teams decimated at one stage and some matches relocated, and crowds were much lower due to various state government restrictions, but Cricket Australia has to cop a large degree of responsibility with a long season and various gimmicks it introduced over the years.
What do you think? What changes need to be made to lure fans back to the BBL?
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I think it’s clear that Cricket Australia need to employ a back to basics approach with the BBL and reduce the season. The other issue too is the lack of Aussie international players (i.e. Warner, Smith, Starc, Cummins etc.) in the competition because of scheduling conflicts.
It probably wouldn’t happen, but I recommend they move the competition to a six-week window from February until mid-March. This way it is completely out of the way of the mens international team calendar. The season would wrap up just before the AFL starts. Have five weeks of the regular season then one week of finals.
Each week would comprise of two rounds (eight matches), so it would be a 5 week/10-round season, and look like this:
Monday night - exclusive to Foxtel
Tuesday night - exclusive to Foxtel
Wednesday night - exclusive to Seven
Thursday night - exclusive to Seven
Friday night - exclusive to Seven
Saturday night - exclusive to Seven
Sunday afternoon - exclusive to Seven
Sunday night - exclusive to Foxtel
Foxtel would exclusively broadcast Sunday to Tuesday night games so Seven can still air their reality shows on those three nights, and Seven get the rest of the games exclusive to them.
The Top Four teams at the end of the regular season advance to the finals for semi-finals and then the final.
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The BBL final wasnt a great game, not helped by the decimation of the Sixers squad due to injuries and covid.
The season just drags on too long and the finals system is ridiculous for an 8 team competition - this year was made worse by having games go head to head against the test matches because of covid scheduling.
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Here is CA’s wrap of the Australian Cricket Awards and voting breakdown for the top 3 in each category - Mitchell Starc beat Mitchell Marsh by just one vote to win the Allan Border Medal.
I wonder if the awards will return to a black-tie dinner format in 2023 or 2024?
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Disagree - the competition works better over summer, people tend to stay up later at night etc.
I actually don’t think a lot needs to change necessarily - punters (esp in Perth) will feel less connected to their team given they have been out of state etc, that will hopefully change for next season.
I think there’s probably some serious questions about whether eight teams is too many - some of the quality of the batting/bowling has been quite poor at times - but I doubt that will change.
A couple of things I would change though -
Wrap up the night before the Australian Open starts. They’ve been dealt a rough hand with the success of Barty and the SpecialK clowns, but the BBL has suffered in its biggest two weeks because of the attention on the tennis. That won’t happen every year, but playing the finale on the Sunday night before the Aussie Open would avoid those issues.
Does everyone really need to play everyone twice? 14 games each team is a bit excessive and feeds into the tournament going too long.
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I think the BBL can keep the current finals format but needs to reduce the regular season back to eight rounds. Each team will play eight matches - four home and four away. There should be a single round robin while the eighth game should be a return match against a designated opponent, this will allow the Sydney and Melbourne derbies to occur twice during the season.
I agree with OnAir that the BBL final should be held on the night before the Australian Open.
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Hopefully next year, it will then be a sign that things are more normal again.
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