Mel Jones Calls for Boards to Work on Scheduling and Create WBBL Window

The Perth Scorchers and Melbourne Renegades are among the hopefuls for the finals of the Women’s Big Bash League this season, but whoever makes it will go into the game with a depleted squad as players will depart for national duty.

Cricket Australia’s newest board member Mel Jones is concerned about this for the future and has called for boards to work together to create a designated window in the international calendar for the WBBL to ensure the availability of overseas players for the duration of the tournament.

“You create heroes and a game plan and all of these things with a certain set of players, and then you lose them for a final, that’s pretty tough,” Jones told cricket.com.au. “At the end of the day it’s down to the boards to plan ahead and make sure they’re supporting their players to earn more money and develop their games.”



Perth would lose Amy Jones and Nat Sciver and Melbourne would have to be without the services of Danielle Wyatt and Tammy Beaumont, should the two advance, given England’s upcoming tour of Pakistan that will be played in Malaysia from December 9.

Furthermore, given the rules that require players to feature in at least one regular-season game to qualify for the final it leaves Perth with Irish pacer Kim Garth as their only international.

In addition, Indian players – who have been top-performing stars in the previous editions – didn’t feature in the WBBL this season, while Stafanie Taylor played just two games for the Strikers due to India’s series in the West Indies.

The scheduling of the tournaments were recent and these things come down to individual boards, and Jones hopes that working together to have designated windows whilst scheduling tours could ensure players get the opportunity and exposure they need by participating in T20 leagues around the world.

“We need to find a way for the national bodies to work together and plan the international calendar out in advance a little bit more, so players know where they’re going to be 24 months in advance,” Jones said. “I think (at the moment) some of the other nations probably aren’t thinking outside of getting their national teams playing more, so then they don’t think about what else could be impacted (by their scheduling).

“Hopefully this can be an awareness campaign to say this is where world cricket is at, and we’d love to have players from Bangladesh and Pakistan play more and more in WBBL, but for that to happen we need to clear these windows.”