12 January 2012

Big bash for Canberra?

| johnboy
Join the conversation
27
big bash photo

The Daily Telegraph has musings from Cricket Australia about expanding the woefully named Big Bash League to include a Canberra team next year.

THE Gold Coast, Canberra, Newcastle and Geelong are all in the running to have a Big Bash team as soon as next summer as the reinvigorated Twenty20 competition continues to explode.

With ratings and crowds surging ahead of expectations, Cricket Australia has already began looking at further expansion years ahead of its original timetable.

The long dream of being able to trek down to Manuka Oval after work for a top notch T-20 match finally draws closer.

[Photo courtesy Cricket Australia.]

Join the conversation

27
All Comments
  • All Comments
  • Website Comments
LatestOldest

great entertainment , bring it home homies 😛 Waiting for this to happen 🙂

Indeed.

it was called the Tooheys Country Challenge, or something similiar and was a bunch of ex test cricketers and first class cricketers playing some sort of limited overs game.

Bruce Stadium was way too small. Every mishit ended up as six.

I was only a little tacker but I would say it was early 80s.

That was it – for some reason I remember Len Pascoe being involved. Thanks.

Holden Caulfield11:08 am 13 Jan 12

sb14 said :

Deckard said :

Heavs said :

No lights = no BB.

Wouldn’t they play at Canberra Stadium? The short boundaries would suit the format.

+1 for Canberra Stadium. It would be a fantastic venue for T20

If it was too small when the Tooheys Country Challenge was played there some 30 years ago, then it will be way too small now after Teflon Kate had her way with it.

It’s a union/league/football venue only.

pink little birdie10:18 am 13 Jan 12

It’s just not cricket if it’s played on a rectangular field.

Just build the new stadium

wildturkeycanoe said :

Great idea but what is all this Manuka Oval garbage? Canberra stadium is ready for it, as it is played in the evenings. Also, how do you get all the spectators to and from the game, considering the miserable public transport system we have and lack of parking around the ground? Each bus carries 45-50 people and there are only two [2] services after 9:48 PM going to City or Woden. So, 100 people get out of the ground and the other 12,550 have to get a taxi or walk.
Cricket Australia needs to consider this before even thinking about bringing a national sport to a small country town like Canberra!

Not to mention the cost of transporting a whole family by bus! 😛

sb14 said :

Deckard said :

Heavs said :

No lights = no BB.

Wouldn’t they play at Canberra Stadium? The short boundaries would suit the format.

+1 for Canberra Stadium. It would be a fantastic venue for T20

I have a vague recollection of attending a cricket game at Canberra stadium in either the late 70s or early 80s. I think it was a one dayer with a touring international team – but i was very young

In trying to find out what that game was, I came across the interesting fact that the current 400m world record for women was set at Bruce (as it then was) Stadium (1985 Marita Koch) and the current 4x100m world record for women was set at the same event (East Germany). Obviously the asterix for ‘probable drug use’ applies. Still, how many other athletic/major sports records have been set in Canberra, let alone lasted for almost 30 years.

Deckard said :

Heavs said :

No lights = no BB.

Wouldn’t they play at Canberra Stadium? The short boundaries would suit the format.

+1 for Canberra Stadium. It would be a fantastic venue for T20

I think if they could get lights at Manuka I’d be a season-ticket holder. Even at Canberra Stadium I’d go fairly often.

I’m OK with the name “Big Bash”, otherwise it’d be called “Having a Bat” or “Whacking Off” or some other double-entendre (And the mathematically-correct “Increased Randomness” just doesn’t roll-off the tongue so smoothly).

I fully support Cricket keeping-up with people’s shortening attention-spans (Test-matches are the TL:DR sport!).

wildturkeycanoe10:01 pm 12 Jan 12

Great idea but what is all this Manuka Oval garbage? Canberra stadium is ready for it, as it is played in the evenings. Also, how do you get all the spectators to and from the game, considering the miserable public transport system we have and lack of parking around the ground? Each bus carries 45-50 people and there are only two [2] services after 9:48 PM going to City or Woden. So, 100 people get out of the ground and the other 12,550 have to get a taxi or walk.
Cricket Australia needs to consider this before even thinking about bringing a national sport to a small country town like Canberra!

poetix said :

Where’s the elegance? Or the long drawn out battles between bowler and batsman? Sigh.

Not to mention the blood-pumping thrill of playing-out for a draw.

Primal said :

But all the highlighter colours have been taken already? We’d have to wearing a fetching beige-and-grey combo.

Yes, we’ll have to apply the <blink> tag!

I expect subsequent teams will have to combine multiple bright colours – I vote for the SLC/Maccas/DHL classic of red/yelow.

poetix said :

Where’s the elegance? Or the long drawn out battles between bowler and batsman? Sigh.

That’s called a Test – and another one begins tomorrow! W00t!

Where’s the elegance? Or the long drawn out battles between bowler and batsman? Sigh.

Heavs said :

No lights = no BB.

Wouldn’t they play at Canberra Stadium? The short boundaries would suit the format.

Primal said :

But all the highlighter colours have been taken already? We’d have to wearing a fetching beige-and-grey combo.

Surely we could stake a claim to take back the lime green from whichever sydney team has it (I cant believe that after all the complaints about how hard it is to figure out where the super 15 rugby teams come from that they still decided to promote the team name rather than team location)

anyway, lime green is our colour. i remember lime green milk and breach in 1989.

Pfft. That’s not real cricket.

Waiting For Godot4:08 pm 12 Jan 12

Gee, more pictures on TV of sportsmen at Manuka Oval with rows of completely empty seats behind them.

Holden Caulfield2:36 pm 12 Jan 12

Heavs said :

No lights = no BB.

Easy fix, surely. Tell Kevin Sheedy it would be great to have lights at Manuka and then we can build them with GWS funds, haha.

… and they said Packer’s one-day comp would be the end of cricket. They certainly didn’t envisage this abomination!

I think the only failure is the two teams in Sydney and Melbourne. Plus the generic flouro uniforms, each team a seperate colour. What would have been the issue if one team wanted to be blue and white, another blue and yellow for example?

Still i’d go watch a T20 game after work if we had lights at Manuka. They’ll probably play Canberra games as double headers starting at 3pm though instead 🙂

Prefer to have a test match at Manuka once every few years, eg this year they could have played either a 3 test series against NZ or 5 against India.

Heavs said :

No lights = no BB.

everyone brings a candle?

No lights = no BB.

Holden Caulfield1:14 pm 12 Jan 12

After seeing the commentators get excited about a crowd record at Bellerive the other night (IIRC it was 13,000+) I was wondering why we don’t already have a Comets team playing in the Big Bash.

Would have been the perfect opportunity to get Canberra on the cricketing map for a few hits and giggles.

Is that why I had a missed call from Cricket Australia on my phone …. Yes, I am available 🙂

Hey this is great news – and I think ‘Big Bash’ is quite a good name, it is a slog fest after all.

Note for those without Foxtel, the T20 isn’t available with Foxtel on the Xbox – a friend found this out the hard way after subscribing for a month just to watch the Big Bash.

But all the highlighter colours have been taken already? We’d have to wearing a fetching beige-and-grey combo.

Daily Digest

Want the best Canberra news delivered daily? Every day we package the most popular Riotact stories and send them straight to your inbox. Sign-up now for trusted local news that will never be behind a paywall.

By submitting your email address you are agreeing to Region Group's terms and conditions and privacy policy.