The South African domestic T20 competition may recently have concluded but fans of the quickfire shortest format of the game don’t have long to wait for their next fix of smash, crash and bash action as one of the best tournaments in the world gets underway on Thursday when the latest season of the Big Bash League commences.
The growing trend for T20 tournaments is change but thankfully the Big Bash League has resisted any temptation to change and the format remains exactly the same as last season which is one of the things which makes it the tournament it is.
Eight franchises will once again do battle in the tournament for the big prize and after a lot of ins and outs in all the teams we are set for a pretty competitive and exciting event with some surprise results and different teams in the mix.
The Perth Scorchers defend their title. They have made the last four finals of this event and have won the last two of them so they are very much the team to beat. They have largely retained last season’s squad and if anything strengthened it with the addition of England’s David Willey.
The Melbourne Stars always go into this tournament as the favourites to land the title. They always perform strongly in the early part of the competition but as Australia begin limited overs series towards the end of the tournament the Stars lose big players and struggle to maintain their momentum.
Kevin Pietersen returns for another season while Glenn Maxwell and James Faulkner will be important players for the time they are around but how the Stars cope without them could determine how well they go. Losing Jackson Bird won’t have helped in that regard.
The Stars’ city rivals Melbourne Renegades have been busy since the last renewal of this tournament. They have spent big to bring Chris Gayle over while Cameron White, Xavier Doherty and Nathan Hauritz all come in from other franchises.
Gayle and Aaron Finch are likely to be the most explosive opening pairing in the tournament and the Red men have a solid looking batting line up with the likes of Callum Ferguson, Matthew Wade and White all very good in this format.
If there is a concern about the Renegades it would be in the fact that Peter Siddle and James Pattinson will be away for the first half of the tournament but Dwayne Bravo makes up for that. I’m not sure about their coach David Saker either. I’d be surprised if the Renegades don’t make the finals but whether they win remains to be seen.
The Sydney Sixers were beaten in the final last year and have replaced the retired Brett Lee with the very solid Jackson Bird but with Nathan Lyon away for a good deal of time and Mitchell Starc and Steve Smith ruled out of the tournament the Sixers might lack some strength in depth.
The flip side is that they will have Brad Haddin for the whole tournament while Sean Abbott, Jordan Silk and Nic Maddinson and all enhance their growing reputations under the leadership of the cool and calm Moises Henriques. There’s just something about this Sixers side that says to me they might not go as well as last year.
They are the four favoured sides in the betting with the Hobart Hurricanes, Adelaide Strikers, Sydney Thunder and the Brisbane Heat all in the second half of the outright market.
Fans of the Hurricanes will be able to watch Kumar Sangakkara and Darren Sammy throughout the tournament not to mention Tim Paine, Ben Dunk, Dan Christian and George Bailey. If Shaun Tait can inspire a young bowling attack the Hurricanes could be dangers but consistency could be an issue.
Adelaide Strikers might well be the team of those from Yorkshire. Not only has their coach Jason Gillespie taken over in the hotseat but Adil Rashid is one of the two overseas players. Mahela Jayawardene brings a wealth of experience as does captain Brad Hodge and they are joined by exciting hitters like Craig Simmons, Tim Ludeman and Travis Head.
There is no Kieron Pollard for the Strikers this season though so there will be plenty of pressure on the likes of Kane Richardson and Ben Laughlin to deliver with the ball. The Strikers could do without any surprise ODI call-ups.
The Sydney Thunder have been horrendous in the last couple of seasons but like the Renegades they’ve gone big in the off season. They have paid big to get Andre Russell in town for the tournament and he could be a star of the event.
Along with Jacques Kallis, Shane Watson and Andrew McDonald the Thunder have some good all round quality to go with seasoned internationals Mike Hussey, Clint McKay and Pat Cummins. Having Usman Khawaja available would do them no harm but the Thunder need to learn to walk before they run after two awful campaigns.
Brisbane Heat are former winners of the competition but look nothing like the side they were back then. Brendon McCullum’s unavailability hasn’t helped their structure but they’ve done well to get Lendl Simmons in at short notice.
He and Samuel Badree will be big players but there is a lack of out and out quality around them with the likes of Watson, Johnson, Harris, Pomersbach and Christian all big players in the past no longer in Queensland. Joe Burns being away with Australia isn’t ideal either.
I’m struggling to see beyond the Perth Scorchers this season. In fact the only thing that remotely puts me off is the fact that winning anything three times on the trot is a difficult thing to do but a settled squad with a top quality coach and a real formula for playing this game is never a bad combination.
I fancy the Strikers, the Stars and the Renegades to go well this season too but when the big games come around the one side you want to be with are the Scorchers and I’ll do just that with my outright punt.
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