Big Bash League needs Indian ties
In an analysis of how the Big Bash League will fair, Sydney Morning Herald's Chloe Saltau says there may be an effort to increase the ties with the Australian Football League in a similar manner to the way the IPL has a Bollywood influence
Dustin Silgardo
25-Feb-2013
In an analysis of how the Big Bash League will fair, Sydney Morning Herald's Chloe Saltau says there may be an effort to increase the ties with the Australian Football League in a similar manner to the way the IPL has a Bollywood influence. However, she says, the only way the league can succeed is if it eventually contracts Indian players or has Indian investors.
Cricket Australia has said from the outset it cannot and will not aim to emulate the Indian Premier League, but it must wish it had a Bollywood to lend its new baby, the Big Bash League, some cachet, if not some cash. Cricket Australia will send Credit Suisse representatives on a roadshow to India this week to cultivate potential investors. But in the meantime, Big Bash teams in Melbourne are leaning heavily on the town's only answer to Bollywood - the AFL.
Dustin Silgardo is a former sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo