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Are we there yet!?! Are we there yet?!? Are we there yet?!?
In recent years, the Big Bash League (BBL) has been like a quick drive to the beach. A couple of games of I Spy, the cricket on the radio and a bit of excruciating Dad-singing and you were on the sand in no time.
This season seems more like a trip across the Nullarbor. The kids grow increasingly restless after their iPad batteries expire, the radio crackles as the last station goes out of range and the exhausting length of the journey and the repetitive nature of the terrain overwhelms any sense of excitement about the final(s) destination.
That a BBL extended until mid-February would have the competition dragging its feet was, of course, wholly predictable and — even more telling — widely predicted.
"Killing the golden goose" … "too much of a good thing" … "squeezing the lemon dry".
These were just some of the cliches used in foresight upon the competition's extension to a full home and away series by those now lining up to remind Cricket Australia (CA) they told them so.
'There are some tired boys'
More tellingly, even some with a vested interest in the BBL's elongated season seem to have accepted the blindingly obvious — more games has equalled less overall interest as the competition drones on into the new school year.
Seven broadcast and then tweeted the lament of the Brisbane Heat's Chris Lynn that the new schedule was proving too arduous for players, unusual given the promotion-oriented social media policies of sporting rights-holders.
"I think 14 games is too many," Lynn said.
"It's a bit of a rollercoaster, you can go in and out of form so quickly. Yeah, we're [Brisbane] down the bottom end [of the ladder], but talking to the players around the other squads, there are some tired boys."
BBL players citing tiredness after a few extra T20 hit-and-giggles in a season when the Australian Test attack spent long days in the field trying to dismiss India seems a touch rich.
Lynn didn't gain much sympathy from Australia and Sydney Sixers star Alyssa Healy who responded: "Lol. Try playing two [T20s] in the same day … Or 4 in 8 days in 4 different states."
But it is not the respective fatigue of BBL and WBBL players that matters, but the fatigue suffered by BBL viewers over this too-long season and the reputational damage this could cause a valuable product.
Regardless of what traditionalists might think of the BBL's thwack-and-smash format, its contribution to all levels of Australian cricket in recent years is as indisputable as the complaints about the length of this season's competition.
Entry-level programs and early-age junior teams are teeming with children who have been attracted to cricket by the BBL, many from non-traditional cricket backgrounds who are, in turn, bringing their families to the game as volunteers and late-life fans.
Thus, as I have argued here often, T20 is not "instead of Test cricket" but has created opportunities for Test cricket as kids attracted by the BBL acquire basic skills and come to appreciate the challenges of long-form games.
So to argue the BBL season is now too long is not to suggest the T20 tournament is not a valuable, even crucial, element of Australian cricket's present and future fortunes.
But with the BBL's increased value comes the responsibility to resist the temptation to, yes, "squeeze the lemon dry" as has happened this season with more games shown on more networks creating less overall interest and excitement.
Rescheduled season may require a rethink
At the same time, the BBL's annexation of the first-class season, with the Sheffield Shield pushed to the margins while two Tests were played in late January, has caused further reputational damage from those who justifiably bemoan the Shield's demeaning treatment.
You might argue the new schedule has not stopped Australia successfully blooding the impressive Jhye Richardson or giving Kurtis Patterson a Test audition against Sri Lanka.
But, whether or not the selectors got it right, the guesswork and supposition around the Australian Test team — Richardson queue-jumped squad member Chris Tremain and Patterson did the same to Will Pucovski when neither Tremain and Pucovski had much chance to do anything right or wrong — has caused further resentment toward the schedule-hogging BBL.
But the real risk for the BBL is a loss of interest from would-be spectators now in a holding pattern waiting to reach Destination Finals as their children's late-night viewing is curtailed by school, and back pages are devoted to the minutiae of the forthcoming AFL/NRL seasons.
Even with its long-term contracts and the promotional power of Seven and Fox Sports (supplemented by the News Corp press), the BBL is not immune to the kind of bust-and-boom that has afflicted other sports in a saturated market.
CA chief executive Kevin Roberts has foreshadowed a review of this year's BBL schedule, albeit while insisting the contractually obligated full home-and-away schedule would remain.
This presents an early challenge for CA's new administration, one where it can demonstrate a capacity to listen and learn by significantly tightening next season's BBL schedule instead of doubling down on a mistake for fear of admitting one was made.
Topics: twenty20, cricket, sport, australia
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