BBL 2021-22 | Cricket Australia set to shift Covid-hit BBL to Melbourne
The ongoing season of BBL has been moved to Melbourne Hub as part of a plan to combat Covid-19 outbreaks that have hampered the competition’s schedule so far. The teams will begin taking residence in Melbourne Hub over the final stage of the season and a few matches will be relocated to Victoria.
Big Bash League (BBL) has been one of the most exciting T20 leagues all around the world, however, the ongoing season of the tournament have been affected by Covid-19. The ongoing BBL have witnessed a huge surge in Covid-19 cases across all eight teams in the tournament, and it forced postponement and last-minute rescheduling of the fixtures.
Meanwhile, Cricket Australia (CA) have revealed that they are planning to relocate all eight teams to Melbourne in order to keep the competition running.
Cricket Australia (CA) CEO Nick Hockley confirmed his plan to SEN.
"It's very complex. We are gradually moving the teams into Melbourne. We saw the other night we had a critical mass of teams in south-east Queensland, and we were able to rejig fixtures to keep going," he told SEN.
"The last 10 days of the group stage of the competition, we will be gradually moving teams into Melbourne. They will still fly in and fly out for games in home markets. But if a team is impacted it gives us much more opportunity to swap teams in," Hockley added.
Out of the eight teams, Melbourne Stars and Brisbane Heat have been affected the most by the Covid-19 outbreak in their team camps. However, Hockley is confident that the ongoing BBL can continue without any further interruptions.
"While it's not ideal, it's great the level of commitment everyone is showing to the competition continuing. In every step we have prioritised the health and wellbeing of those involved. We have a clear plan now for the final run in. We are very confident we will be able to complete the competition fully,” he added.