After two years of planning and delays caused by Covid-19, the BBL has finally submitted a draft of foreign players for next season. Here’s everything you need to know.
What is the overseas project?BBL teams will no longer be looking for their three foreign players in private. They will select a minimum of two or a maximum of three from a draft that will likely be held on a single day in August. The draft will only be for foreign players. National players will be hired in the same way as always.
What are foreign players named?Players can nominate their price category and availability in terms of the number of games they can play. The BBL will once again be a season of 14 more final matches and CA is realistic that not every foreigner will be available for the entire competition. There will be an application period between June and August. Players will be classified into four categories: platinum, gold, silver and bronze. The players themselves can choose to join the gold, silver or bronze band. Platinum players will be decided by the BBL based on nominations and will be paid approximately AUD $ 340,000. A significant portion of that will be outside the $ 1.9 million salary cap, with Cricket Australia recharging the deal through a marked payment. This money is a flat fee and will be paid regardless of whether the player is available for six games or for 14. There are no match payments in the BBL, as players are contracted with established withholdings.
Gold players will win approximately $ 260,000, $ 175,000 silver and $ 100,000 bronze. Like the Platinum category, the club will pay a portion within the cover and CA will provide a bonus outside the cover, but the proportion of CA canopy payments is inconsistent across categories, as Platinum will receive a greater bonus than Bronze. Categories only refer to price, not availability. Thus, players can nominate to be available for the entire tournament in the Bronze category, or for half of the tournament in the Platinum category. Its availability is its currency and teams will have to decide whether it is worth selecting a Platinum player with limited availability.
What is the draft order?There will be a weighted draw to decide the order. The three teams that lost the final last season – Melbourne Renegades, Brisbane Heat and Melbourne Stars – will take part in a lottery for the top three picks. The Renegades, who were last, will have three chances to get the first selection, Heat two and Stars one. Here’s another way of thinking: there are six balls in the first lottery and three of them are from Renegades which gives them a 50% chance of choosing the first, while the stars, with one ball, they only have a 16.66% chance. The order of the next five elections will be selected from a second pot with last season’s finalists. Again, the lottery will be weighted. Fifth-placed Hobart Hurricanes will have five chances to reach the fourth team, Sydney Thunder four, Adelaide Strikers three, Sydney Sixers two and field defender Perth Scorchers will get one. Shots from five to eight will be drawn in the same way. Once the order has been established through the two weighted lotteries, the first two rounds of the draw will be ordered from one to eight. The third round will be played in reverse order, so that the eighth team will get two selections in a row (selection theoretically 16 and 17). The fourth round will return to normal operation. Thus, team 1 will get two consecutive selections (elections 24 and 25).
How does the draft work?There will be four rounds of the draft and each team will get a selection per round. Clubs can pass if they do not want to choose in certain rounds, but must choose a minimum of two or a maximum of three players at the end of the fourth round. The first round is for Platinum players only. In the second round, teams can choose Platinum or Gold players. In the third round, teams can select gold or silver players. In the fourth round, teams can choose silver or bronze players. Teams do not have to select a Platinum player.
Can foreign players currently connected to BBL clubs be retained?
Yes, they can. But only one. This could be coined as the “Rashid Khan rule”. For example, Rashid has played his entire BBL career with Strikers, but he will almost certainly be a platinum player and available to everyone in the first round. If the Renegades get the first lottery selection and select Rashid, the Strikers have the option to use their hold selection to keep it. Attackers should pay the same amount of money and should use their selection in the first round to retain it. Then the renegades would have a chance to choose again. Players like Mujeeb-Ur-Rahman in the Heat, Alex Hales in the Thunder and Haris Rauf in the Stars could be retention picks given their strong ties to the teams if they are named in the draft.
Is there an exchange of selections? No, once the draft order is established, it will continue like this.
What about substitute players?Each team can hire up to four substitute players abroad (or five if they have only taken two players in the draft) if their draft picks are not available due to injury or international duty. There will be an additional $ 50,000 AUD substitution bonus available for clubs that use it outside the salary cap to help recruit replacement players. However, the substitute foreign players must have been nominated for the draft and to be eligible for the $ 50,000 teams they must have selected a Platinum player. If a team chooses two Platinum players, it is eligible for a $ 100,000 salary cap reduction. Teams cannot tell foreign players in private that they are not nominated for the draft and then hire them as substitutes. They must have been available to all teams initially in the draft before being available as substitutes.
Are the list sizes the same?Yes. Clubs will have 18-player contract lists that include 15 Australian national players and three overseas players, although teams may have 16 locals and a minimum of two overseas. Any substitute player abroad is on top of that.
What about uncontracted Australian players?
There is a possibility that Australian international players will be available for large portions of the upcoming BBL. Australia’s limited overtime specialists will be available for the first half of the tournament and could be there all the time if the three-match ODI series against South Africa scheduled for 12 and 17 January does not go ahead. The Australian Test players will miss the first part of the tournament, but will be available from 9 January at the end of the Sydney Test against South Africa. Multiformat internationals such as David Warner, Pat Cummins, Steven Smith, Mitchell Starc and Cameron Green are players who do not currently have a BBL contract with clubs. If they are available and a club does not have a full roster or need a replacement player abroad, clubs can use the $ 50,000 replacement bonus, plus any space left on their salary cap, to Australian players to hire. them for the end of the season. tournament. This ensures that the farce situation with Smith and Sixers will probably be avoided last season.
Will the draft abroad be televised?The BBL is arguing with Channel Seven and Foxtel rights holders over draft television. If none of these networks choose to show it, the draft is likely to be played online.
Alex Malcolm is an associate editor at ESPNcricinfo