Victoria ditch 'Bushrangers' nickname
Cricket Victoria has said the decision was made to reduce 'clutter' and reinforce the three main brands: the Victoria state team and the two BBL teams from Melbourne, the Stars and the Renegades
ESPNcricinfo staff
15-May-2018
Victoria's players celebrate their victory in the dressing room • Getty Images
Victoria will no longer carry their men's team nickname 'Bushrangers'. In a move to declutter and highlight the state's two Big Bash teams' branding, the state team has decided to discard this nickname of more than two decades. The women's team's nickname - the Spirit - has also been ditched.
The state team nicknames were introduced in the mid-1990s and have stayed relevant, but Cricket Victoria's cricket operations chief Shaun Graf indicated that this change was brought in to move with the times.
"We're in a new era where Big Bash, T20 cricket, you've got the two brands," Shaun Graf told Fairfax Media. "It was more an overall feel from marketing and senior management. Those names came about many years ago.
"There's a lot of clutter and we're trying to make it that it's pretty clear as to our main marketing brands are the two Big Bash teams (Melbourne Stars and Melbourne Renegades), and our high-performance brands are the Victorian state teams."
Graf said the decision had been made after consulting both past and present players.
"We've had chats with players," he said. "The Bushrangers brand has been something that's been in place for over 20 years, but we've always been known as the Victorian cricket team, and same with the women's team."
The Victorian Cricket Association logo, which already features on the Sheffield Shield team's cap, will also become more prominent on team uniforms as a part of this move.