Premier Cricket support key for BBL clubs

Cricket Victoria has thanked Premier cricketers, coaches and clubs who have played a critical role in enabling the KFC BBL to continue, particularly in the last fortnight.

The availability and quality of club players has been a key ingredient in the development of the BBL’s central replacement player pool, in addition to players who previously joined the Melbourne Stars and Melbourne Renegades as local replacement players.

Among those players were Ringwood’s Tom Rogers, Prahran’s Lachlan Bangs, St Kilda’s Patrick Rowe and Footscray’s Travis Dean. St Kilda pair Todd Murphy and Henry Thornton are currently representing the Sydney Sixers and Adelaide Strikers respectively.

Cricket Victoria General Manager – Premier Cricket Liam Murphy said “Naturally BBL clubs would prefer to have their contracted list of players available but the difficult circumstances of the last fortnight in particular have also delivered new opportunities.”

“It was fantastic to see Tom Rogers play so well in the Stars match at the CitiPower Centre after impressing in Premier Cricket for so long. For other players, regardless of whether they made their debut or not, the opportunity to be involved in BBL training environments has been fantastic. It sets the standards on what it takes to compete at the next level,” Murphy said.

Cricket Victoria CEO Nick Cummins said the support was critical in giving the Stars and Renegades options when faced with issues around availability.

“In essence, this is the player pathway operating as it should. I’m grateful to all clubs for their excellent preparation of their teams which has allowed players to step up at short notice and contribute to their BBL team and the competition,” Cummins said.

“We’re continuing to review how we make our high performance pathway as robust and effective as it can be. The teamwork across Victorian cricket in recent weeks has been fantastic and shows what we can achieve.”