The Big Bash League (BBL 2021/22) has been forced to postpone the overseas players' draft for the upcoming 11th edition of the BBL for another year due to the ongoing uncertainties created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cricket Australia (CA) had earlier proposed the BBL draft for overseas players, but now decided to postpone this season as well due to uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic and now the overseas players will be signed in the traditional way.
Alistair Dobson, General Manager of BBL, told ESPNcricinfo: “We really like the idea of an overseas player draft and it's something that will be on the agenda again next year. But when we've considered the continuing challenges with overseas travel and the need to give players and clubs some certainty, we've made the call to postpone it for another year.”
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Dobson further added, “There's always different opinions and that's what we love about sport broadly. Across the board our clubs are aligned on the model, it's just clear this isn't the year to try it. We are still incredibly confident we'll get great players in.”
On July 14 (Wednesday), CA announced the schedule for BBL 11 that will kick start with defending champions Sydney Sixers take on Melbourne Stars at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) on December 5 in the tournament opener and the final take place on January 28.
The BBL 11 will start ahead of the one-off Test against Afghanistan and the five-Test Ashes series.
With the BBL 2021-2022 facing a challenge to attract overseas stars given the ongoing border restrictions and quarantine requirements due to the COVID-19 pandemic, England and Afghan players’ presence in Australia will solve the team’s overseas players’ availability issue.
Noteworthy, the schedule of the BBL 11 will include eight “mega days” where Test cricket during the day will be followed by a BBL double-header at night.
(With ANI Inputs)
