Telltale signs the BBL may be getting too cute for its own good

Evans, who smashed a scintillating 76 not out off just 41 balls to lead the Perth Scorchers to a 79-run win in the 2021-22 championship decider against the Sydney Sixers on Friday night, believes changes need to be made to bring fans back through the gate.

In the last four seasons, the BBL has expanded to a full home-and-away format, with each team playing 14 matches. The first six editions saw each team play seven or eight regular-season games, the last such summer (2016-17) attracting an average crowd of 30,114 per match.

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“You need to find a way to make it a bit shorter because (international) guys can’t obviously come for the whole time,” said the Englishman, who has also played in T20 tournaments in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Caribbean, Pakistan and the UAE.

But Evans said Cricket Australia’s rumoured plans to introduce an international player draft for the next edition of the BBL could deter him from returning to the competition.

“I would obviously love to come back and play for the boys (Perth),” he said.

“It’s nice to see some (overseas) affiliation – you’ve got Alex Hales at the Thunder, you’ve got ‘TC’ (Tom Curran) and ‘Vincey’ (James Vince) at the Sixers.

“I think teams can be built around franchises and our players can be built into franchises like that.”

Sixers captain Moises Henriques believes there should also be rule changes to allow state squad players to sit on a BBL roster without taking an extra player spot, so as not to impact a team’s ability to contract an Australian player.

The BBL rejected Sydney’s attempt to play superstar batsman Steve Smith, their former captain, in the final because he was not part of the central pool of local replacement players created on January 10.

“There was a shift in the rules with three weeks to go in the tournament when they made this Covid replacement pool, so I can’t see why they can’t shift the rules anytime they feel like it because that’s obviously what they’ve done,” Henriques said.

The decimated Sixers took on the Scorchers without Josh Phillipe (Covid), Jordan Silk (hamstring) and Jack Edwards (Covid), while Henriques (calf) and Daniel Hughes (calf) played hobbled.

Evans was full of praise for his teammates to win the BBL title having played just one game in Perth all season.

With the domestic season scheduled to conclude in late March, many of his Perth teammates, who are Western Australia state squad members, are unlikely to be able to go home for at least another couple of months.

“To think that they’re not going to go home and I can fly to England is pretty ridiculous,” Evans said.

The 34-year-old revealed he was also enlisted as the Scorchers’ babysitter on occasion during their long stint on the road.

“I babysat for ‘AT’ (Ashton Turner) and his wife Christina, they went out for a meal because they’ve just had twins,” he said.

“I said to them, ‘Look mate, I’m here for you. If you want a night off I’ll babysit’.

“At about five minutes into it I was like, ‘Oh my God’,” he laughed.

“Two twins and another one running around, I was out of my depth. Luckily I called for help and ‘Agz’ (Ashton Agar) and AJ (Tye) came and helped me out.”

Unfortunately for Evans, he missed out on having his young family with him in Australia, and he described being away from them for so long as “horrible”.

“Over Christmas, got a young two-year-old boy, missed his birthday, missed my wife’s birthday. It’s not nice,” he said.

“A couple of tears in airports and things like that, getting some bad news about them not coming over.”

BBL star bloodied in grand final farce

The Perth Scorchers have completed a monumental turnaround to be anointed the undisputed kings of the Big Bash League and Test man Jhye Richardson literally bled for the cause.

The Scorchers thumped the Sydney Sixers by 79 runs in the final at Marvel Stadium on Friday night, Richardson suffering a bloodied nose in the raucous celebrations after he removed Stephen O’Keefe LBW to seal the win.

“I was busy appealing and Munners (Colin Munro) came in from square leg and got his shoulder into my nose,” Richardson said on Fox Cricket, post-match.

With the Docklands venue’s roof keeping the Melbourne rain at bay, and preventing a washed-out tournament decider, the Sixers won the toss and bowled first.

And it looked like an inspired decision initially when Perth found themselves in a particularly grim situation after six overs, crashing to 4-25.

But Laurie Evans (76 not out off 41 balls) and captain Ashton Turner (54 off 35) spearheaded a remarkable recovery effort to get the Scorchers’ innings back on track.

Undeterred by the dire situation their team found themselves in, the pair aggressively took on the Sixers’ bowling attack, and the tactic paid off handsomely.

They combined for a 104-run partnership for the fifth wicket to help Perth reach 6-171, hitting eight fours between them while Evans smashed four sixes in a spectacular knock.

And the Perth bowling attack ensured their efforts weren’t in vain, producing a superb performance, only allowing the Sixers three boundaries in the first 10 overs after Jhye Richardson (2-20 from three overs) and Jason Behrendorff (1-12 from two) restricted them to just 1-26 in their power play.

AJ Tye (3-15 from three), who found himself on a hat-trick, Ashton Turner (1-6 from one), Peter Hatzoglou (1-13 from three) and Ashton Agar (1-25 from four) were also instrumental in applying the brakes, as Sydney finished up with only four fours and one six on the way to 92 – the lowest score in BBL final history – to deliver Perth their first title in five years.

The result saw Perth pull clear of the Sixers (three) as the competition’s most successful club with four titles, triumphing in the fifth meeting in a final between these two heavyweight clubs, and tipping the ledger in their favour 3-2.

In beating the Sixers for the fourth time this summer in as many games, the Scorchers eliminated any doubt about who was this season’s best team, and the achievement is even more commendable considering they only played one game in Perth for the entire campaign, having remained on the road since December 8.

The Scorchers also prevented the Sixers from becoming the first team to win a hat-trick of BBL titles, ensuring Victoria (2006-08) remain the only team to achieve that feat at Australian domestic T20 level after they did it when the Big Bash was a state-based competition.

PERTH PULL IT OUT OF THE FIRE

Perth’s recovery was all the more remarkable considering Sydney’s Sean Abbott (0-27 from four), Jackson Bird (1-6 from one) and Hayden Kerr (1-20 from three) restricted them to their worst power play of the season (1-14). Nathan Lyon (2-24 from three) then put the Scorchers in a really tough spot when he dismissed danger man Mitch Marsh (five) and Colin Munro (one) in the space of six balls.

PATTERSON PLUCKS A PEARLER

With the Sixers’ in limbo at 3-62 in the 10th over, Perth’s Kurtis Patterson delivered the knockout blow when he took a spectacular two-handed catch diving forward at deep mid-wicket to dismiss Dan Christian (three) pulling Tye. Three overs later, Sydney’s fate was sealed when they slumped to 6-77 after Daniel Hughes, who was hampered by an ankle injury, was run out for 42 by Marsh, failing to scamper through for a single he ordinarily would’ve made if he was fully fit. The Sixers plunged to 8-77 when Tye dismissed Abbott and Ben Dwarshuis in consecutive balls.

ABBOTT DROPS A SITTER

At the start of the fourth over in Perth’s innings, Inglis received a life on 12 when he charged down the pitch and mistimed a drive, lobbing a dolly up to mid-off where Abbott dropped one of the biggest sitters you’d ever wish to see, depriving Kerr a wicket with his first ball. It was hard to believe that Abbott was the same guy who took the ‘Superman’ catch-of-the-year contender a month ago against Brisbane. Luckily for Abbott, six balls later Steve O’Keefe had Inglis stumped for 13 by Jay Lenton.

Originally published as BBL final 2022: Perth Scorchers defeat Sydney Sixers Big Bash decider