Australian star Usman Khawaja expressed his concern for the Big Bash League (BBL). He warned the Cricket Australia boss Nick Hockley to let privatization of BBL. Otherwise, it may lag behind, amidst the rise of other T-20 leagues. Not only that, Cricket NSW and Queensland has been pretty vocal too in this issue.
Unlike other T-20 Leagues, its Cricket Australia owns BBL’s eight teams itself. BBL, which will late in this year, around December, and continues till early February 2023. Hence, it is going to face an obvious clash with The South Africa’s new Premier League. South Africa is all set to launch its new six team T-20 tournament. IPL team owners brought all the six teams there. IPL will be backing another new League recently started in UAE too.
According to Khawaja, competition is going to heat up with the rise of so many T-20 Leagues. On Friday, he told the reporters that,
“There’s a lot of cogs that make the decisions but personally you shouldn’t be afraid of moving the game forward even if that means that you let go a little bit on the reins… If you don’t keep up with that, and there’s a small window for the Big Bash to privatise in the next few years, and I’m afraid if we don’t do that we’ll fall behind.”
Usman Khawaja fears local players being ignored
BBL has recently signed T-20 specialists like the Afghan Rashid Khan and the Caribbean Kieron Pollard. As Khawaja told,
“I’ve talked to a couple and they’ve not listed for the draft because they want to spend Christmas at home and then will go and play in the UAE.That’s a red flag for me already.”
“You’ve got lots of great local players who also should be on similar amounts to what the overseas players are, but they can’t be because of the salary cap. The only way you’re going to increase the salary cap is to privatise it.
“Privatisation also brings in a lot of great things from outside, because once there’s money at stake for owners, they’ll try to do their best to give everything for that franchise. Right now it’s sort of going and progressing, but I don’t think it’s innovating as much as it should be as far as the franchises themselves
Khawaja fumed up after Cricket Australia signed International talents for around $ 340,000, even when they won’t stay for the entire tournament. While salary caps for for the local players are way to low, inspite of them needing to play throughout the season.
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