BBL 10

[Durhamfootman]

it's certainly been an eventful day thus far. I guess it was always destined to be so. For a long time in this tournament the Sixers were way out ahead and the Renegades miles off the pace with the other six all much of a muchness in the middle, so the competition for the remaining 4 places was likely to go down to the wire. I suppose as far as the Stars are concerned, the Sixers have gone off the boil a bit, which will surely give them hope of sneaking in through the back door while no-one is looking

[bigfluffylemon]

Perth 0 from 3. Still 11 games to go, so is it too early to start asking how the mighty have fallen?

Yep. Too early.

[Durhamfootman]

Stars fans seem to be complaining that without the Brucie bonus offering the chance to go top and gain home advantage for almost no risk, the sixers would perhaps have settled for second place and fielded a weaker team that the Stars could have walloped to sneak qualification.

feels a bit tenuous to me. I'm sure the sixers would have taken the opportunity to put them out so they wouldn't have to risk facing them later in the KO's

they also forget conveniently that before the new rules came in they couldn't have made it to 4th place anyway..... such is life

(I think the top 5 scenario only came in as part of the new rules.... although I'm not entirely certain about that)

[Durhamfootman]

I have no idea how the Strikers got away with that, tbh. Once the Heat won their game, they were favourites to miss out.

definitely dodged a bullet. A lot of things had to go their way to hang on to 5th

[bigfluffylemon]

So, after all that, you have to ask, was the Bash Boost a success?

I have no idea what it was intended to accomplish by way of making play more dynamic/interesting. Looking at the stats, it appears that in 53 of the 56 matches, the winning side secured the Boost point anyway. It's not at all surprising that more often than not the side ahead at the halfway point in the innings went on to win, but 95% of games? The conclusion seems to be that it's somewhat pointless, or that we should just play T10, as the winner has been determined by 10 overs anyway. It also ended the Sixers/Stars as a meaningful contest after eight overs of the Sixers' chase last night, as once Sixers had secured the point, the winner of the game would have no impact on the table. That said, it's quite impressive that only 12 overs of the whole tournament were dead. Usually I'd expect a few dead rubbers at the end. The expansion of finals to 5 from 4, contrived as it is, probably helps there.

Of the three games the boost point not going to the winner impacted, only one had an impact on the table. Had it been just 4 points for a win, 2 for a no result and ties decided by NRR, Hurricanes would have gone through instead of the Heat, with 7 wins apiece (Strikers had 7 wins too, but the best NRR of the three, so go through either way). The only other impact it could have had was the position of Scorchers v Thunder, but with 8 wins apiece the Scorchers would have finished higher anyway on account of one no-result.

[Durhamfootman]

there seemed to be a few games early on where the chasing sides derailed their run chase by trying to secure the Brucie bonus after 10 overs and then afterwards teams seemed to only worry about getting it if they were pretty close to it anyway.

Similarly we seemed to be well into the competition before any side made a super swap and afterwards it seemed to me to be quite infrequent. Perhaps with this and the 10 over bonus it's just a case of teams needing to familiarise themselves with the tactical nuances and perhaps they need more time to get their heads around them

Deferring 2 overs of batting PP seems to be something teams understood straightaway and made proper use of. I'm guessing that that worked pretty well in terms of what the organisers were hoping for, and might well end up being adopted by other leagues in the future

[Durhamfootman]

Next year they'll probably come up with something ridiculous like 5 ball overs, not always having to change ends, not always having to change bowlers, whilst telling the state sides to play their 50 over cricket competition at the same time with teams that have had all their best players stripped out by the franchises and with a ban on supplementing those teams with overseas players imposed upon them. Imagine how stupid that would be

[Durhamfootman]

Alex Carey and Travis Head continue in their bid to suck the life out of the Strikers innings. Opted to bat first Carey 13 off 22 and Head currently 7 off 15 and ran out the only guy trying to get a wriggle on

I had no idea what they were doing against Thunder and I have no idea what they are playing at here

[Durhamfootman]

dragged themselves to 130

must be a tricky pitch because Heat can't score either and losing wickets to boot

[Durhamfootman]

a sudden brief, 2 ball assault by Denly gets Heat ahead of the asking rate. They might try to milk lots of singles and keep ahead. Concentrate on punishing bad balls. They do only need a run a ball from hereon in

[Durhamfootman]

unless something remarkable happens in the last 2 overs, Heat will milk their way through the the next round. Seems Strikers were just far too slow again. Aside from the first 3 or 4 overs where Heat threw their wickets away, the target put them under absolutely no pressure whatsoever. Making a horlicks of the run out of Denly early on and now Briggs dropping a sitter will not have helped, but they put themselves under the pressure that leads to these sorts of mistakes

Carey and Head took 7 overs out of the game to score 25 runs with only 1 boundary. Denly and Peirson both scored run a ball 40's and that was enough to cruise home with more than an over to spare. Carey and Head are supposed to be international quality with huge experience

The Strikers can have no complaints, their approach to batting since captain Rashid went off on international duty has been decidedly underwhelming

[Durhamfootman]

There seem to have been more than a few poor decisions that have frustrated players and fans

https://www.cricket.com.au/news/mitchel ... 2021-01-31

Unlike the Dribble, every match in the BBL is televised (I think), so I suppose umpiring errors are going to be subjected to a much higher level of scrutiny. Perhaps they should use DRS in the competition

[Durhamfootman]

the bean counters like the new rules and fancy more

https://www.cricket.com.au/news/bbl-rul ... 2021-01-28

[Durhamfootman]

Heat are still on the charge. Their international returnees are making a real difference (which hasn't been the case for other teams) and while they have been playing and winning, today's opponents and future opponents have been largely sitting around scratching their gentles and getting cold.

Momentum is everything in sport.... I think Heat will go on and win it from here

[Durhamfootman]

5 day lockdown in Perth means Scorchers lose home advantage in their semi. Going to be played in Canberra now