Cricket Australia set to relocate COVID-affected BBL to Melbourne

By PTI

MELBOURNE: In its bid to complete the tournament at any cost, a desperate Cricket Australia is set to gradually shift the COVID-hit Big Bash League to Melbourne to avoid any further interruptions.

The decision was revealed by CA CEO Nick Hockley, who said that they are planning to relocate all eight teams inside a bio-bubble in Melbourne as it will make it easier for the organisers to reschedule the fixtures in the event of postponement of matches due to any further COVID positive cases.

The BBL has witnessed an unprecedented COVID outbreak with numerous positive cases being reported across eight franchises, forcing postponement and last-minute rescheduling of matches.

“What we’re dealing with is unprecedented,” Hockley told Australia’s SEN Radio.

“We’ll be gradually centralising (the teams) into Melbourne. What that enables us (Cricket Australia) to do is if a team is significantly impacted, it gives us much more flexibility to be able to swap teams in and complete the fixture,” he added.

Out of the eight teams, Melbourne Stars and Brisbane Heat have been affected the most by the outbreak as the Stars were forced to play two games in as many days with second rung players.

“Those two particular clubs (Stars and Heat) have been heavily impacted,” Hockley said.

“We’ve faced some different timing challenges with test results coming back. It’s not ideal. Obviously, we want everyone to have their full-strength team available. We’ve got a really clear plan now for the final run-in of the competition. We are very confident that we’ll be able to complete the competition,” the CA boss added.