{"id":486860,"date":"2026-02-18T00:58:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T00:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/486860\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T00:58:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T00:58:11","slug":"cricket-australia-has-bold-plan-to-launch-bbl-season-in-india-details-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/486860\/","title":{"rendered":"Cricket Australia has bold plan to launch BBL season in India, details, reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Big Bash season opener in India? <\/p>\n<p>It is far from locked in, but it sounds like it is at least a possibility. <\/p>\n<p>Watch AUS Tour of Pakistan: Watch every match LIVE &amp; EXCLUSIVE on FOX CRICKET, available on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? <a href=\"https:\/\/kayosports.com.au?pg=cricket&amp;extcamp=fsaeditoriallinkcricket-edt-fsp-lnk-awr-grc-cri-kyo&amp;channel=fsa&amp;campaign=fsacontra&amp;voucher=\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img class=\"i-amphtml-fill-content i-amphtml-replaced-content\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/poster-fallback.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>SEN Cricket\u2019s Tom Morris reported on Tuesday afternoon that Cricket Australia has a \u201cbold ambition\u201d to stage the first game of next season in India, with Chennai the ideal location.<\/p>\n<p>It comes after two senior CA staffers, head of business operations Phil Rigby and head of competition development and strategy Margot Harley, reportedly flew to India to get a better understanding for how the game would work logistically. <\/p>\n<p>While Morris reported that no BBL teams have been formally briefed on the matter and that the deal is far from complete, he added that \u201cthis is not just a thought bubble\u201d at the CA.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe key part is this&#8230; this is all part of Cricket Australia\u2019s wider strategy to lean into the Indian influence. Clubs are aware of this ambition but no franchise has been formally asked yet,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n<p>With that in mind, it is unclear at this stage which teams could feature in the game, but the Perth Scorchers are a logical option given the time zone the defending premiers play in.<\/p>\n<p>Morris reported that there \u201cis a view among key figures\u201d that the annual game in Chennai could have a similar positive impact to the NRL\u2019s Las Vegas venture.<\/p>\n<p>The news comes as CA also explores the possibility of privately selling off minority stakes in BBL clubs after it commissioned Boston Consulting Group to assess the competition\u2019s current model and future structure last year.<\/p>\n<p>Privatisation was just one of the possibilities CA was urged to consider as part of the recommendations, which also included the possibility of expansion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Big Bash season opener in India? It is far from locked in, but it sounds like it&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-486860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}