Its really sterile - follow the american model and have an audience there too.
Yes - and I’m not sure the quality of international player is enough either. They’re all good T20 players but not as though they are superstars of the sport.
I disagree: have a look at this list:
Faf, Pollard, Dre Duss, Bravo, Khan, Boult are all firework players. They are heavily disadvantaged by the lack of Indian players obviously, but they aren’t a slouch either.
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The BBL needs to sort this out moving forward - Australia isn’t going to be an attractive location while several other tournaments are able to offer considerably more money (for potentially fewer games)
The teams are choosing based on availability - you might as well have graded the players based on how many games they could potentially play
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Definitely not slouches. But they’re also only really names ardent T20 followers would consider compelling gets, remembering Australia is very insular when it comes to its cricket following.
The best thing they could have done - and they never would - was put the Australian test/T20 players into a draft. Would have been spicy.
The new UAE league is a big worry for the BBL imho.
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It will kill the league. The Bangladesh league is done by Christmas, South Africa isn’t amazingly tempting to players, but the kind of money available to the UAE league is undeniable. Why come here for (next to) nothing for more than a month when you could go and make a quick buck for a very short time?
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Absolutely: central contracted players and those who have played in x amount of international matches in the last 12 months (and haven’t retired from international cricket) are classed as “Marquee players” along with foreign players. Teams can choose to retain one of their “Marquees” (of which only 5 can be in the starting XI). The rest go into the draft (with one retention pick).
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The Indian backing really propels toward the top of the leagues (I’m not completely unconvinced that the BCCI are also behind the scenes directing this one). If the ICC had balls, they’d try and work out how to give every nation the opportunity to have a strong T20 tournament - but what we’ll end up with is run of Indian-backed tournaments.
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Have you seen the teams?
Only the “Desert Vipers” are not IPL-team owned. (They are owned by the owners of Manchester United and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.) The league itself is owned by an Indian company.
The South African league will apparently also have Indian-backed/owned teams.
EDIT: And my point is proved:
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Like what Uzzie just said live on air: make it a free-for-all with a max amount of money to spend on the night and pick whoever you want whenever you want will “add a bit more drama”.
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None of Faf, Pollard & Russel got picked (probably because they are not available for the entire season). And I think they were people that were showcased & announced in a major way the CA
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Correct. du Plessis was the face of all the informational and advertorial stuff.
New Cricket graphics with the zoomed in circle logos instead of the logos from last season with the full logo
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Seems like he was an addition.
Speed and Ginanne replaced by Brendon Julian and Michael Hussey.
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Is he any good as a lead commentator?
I watched the Mini replay of the game so I don’t know how well he went between deliveries, but he seemed to do a decent job when things were happening. I mean I’d prefer Brenton Speed but Hussey was fine, especially for a first go in that role.
My only criticism was that he seemed to describe more than a few shots exactly the same way. I think he’ll grow into the role and expand his phraseology a bit along the way.
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Big call but I would go as far to say that Mr Cricket could be a replacement for the Spin King over the summer. He’s done a bit of work at the desk with the main three faces for Fox’s Test Cricket coverage (Gilly, Guha and Warne) and he fit in well in that environment with them.
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Looks like Brendon Julian is going to commentate for all 100 overs.
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Director: I don’t need to see the overs per hour rate all the time. More important is the required rates of scoring. (Just as I write this they change it 
)
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Focusing on overs/hour in an ODI graphic at all is strange - surely they’d only be doing it if Australia were in danger of potentially being docked ODI league/World Cup qualifying points for being slow, as that can happen now.
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