Entering its 10th season, the Women’s Big Bash League continues to be the standard bearer for women’s domestic T20 cricket. But while other sporting organisations are finding ways to expand their women’s competitions, the WBBL has gone the other way.
Starting with a double-header at Adelaide Oval on 27 October, the WBBL this summer has slashed its regular season from 14 to 10 matches per team. “The right thing for our competition is to play less events, but make them bigger and better,” says Alistair Dobson, Big Bash Leagues general manager.
Jess Jonassen, captain of Brisbane Heat, believes the leaner calendar makes it easier for players – especially internationals – to commit to the competition. “[14 rounds] was a long time,” she says. “It was sort of six weeks away from home for a lot of them and obviously, with how congested the international schedules and calendars are getting, you don’t really have that luxury of that six-week period where you can give your all.”
That echoes the tensions in the men’s game, where a crowded calendar means players are increasingly having to choose between local opportunities, international matches and emerging franchise leagues.
Jonassen has played in The Hundred in the UK, the Women’s Premier League in India, as well as the Caribbean Premier League, but says the WBBL has a special significance for its cultural impact on Australian cricket over the past decade.
“You can’t be what you can’t see, and now there are so many female athletes out there that are actually being seen,” she says. “You put in so much work and so much blood, sweat and tears, so it’s nice to get that little bit of extra exposure.”
The 31-year-old recalls the early days of teams playing two games in a day to keep as much time free to allow players to keep working or studying as part of the initial bargaining agreement. Those conditions have been replaced by a largely professional environment offering salaries which average $163,000 for state contracted players.
“That allows girls and young women coming through to think playing cricket professionally is a realistic dream and goal,” Jonassen says. “But you can only sort of get that remuneration benefit and the financial gain through the extra exposure, and the broadcast deals.”
The WBBL is widely considered to be the highest quality women’s T20 domestic competition in the world, but the landscape is becoming more competitive with an expanding WPL in India and new entrants like the Caribbean Premier League.
Dobson says the increasingly global nature of women’s cricket is on Cricket Australia’s mind. “It requires the WBBL to stay on our toes in terms of the proposition to players, but also working with the ICC [International Cricket Council] and other member countries around scheduling and keeping the window free,” he says.
Being competitive on salary, offering professional environments, supporting player development, and delivering a memorable match experience are Cricket Australia’s priorities to ensure the competition retains its international reputation.
“When the players are here, we want to make sure there’s an experience they want to come back to, whether that’s the way they’re treated, the crowds they play in front of, increasingly the venues they play in – they are going to play even more games this year in the big, iconic stadiums – and all those things go into the mix,” Dobson says.
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This summer is the second of a strategy to sprinkle high-profile matches at large venues into the home-and-away season, alongside a majority of matches at smaller ovals. Jonassen’s season with the Heat starts with a game against the defending premiers the Strikers in a grand final rematch at the Adelaide Oval, followed by Melbourne Renegades’ clash against Sydney Sixers.
The left-arm bowler is focused on returning to the Australian side after she was overlooked for the recent T20 World Cup, where the national team was surprisingly eliminated in the semi-finals.
Jonassen says Australian national team players are financially “pretty well looked after”, but that opportunities around the world will continue to emerge and at some point players may elect to focus on franchise opportunities.
“We’d be pretty naïve to think that that’s not going to be something that will pop up in the future,” she says. “As athletes, you know that your career is not going to last forever, so it’s a matter of trying to maximise those opportunities where you can from a financial point of view, and set yourself up.”
After a WBBL career counting 135 games – a tally higher than any other player – Jonassen still recalls her first match, a double-header at Junction Oval in Melbourne in 2015. “We had the [Melbourne] Stars in the morning, and we had the Stars in the afternoon, and I don’t think we got Meg [Lanning] out. We got absolutely pumped, it was a very firm introduction.”
