Sydney, July 31(ANI): Though Cricket Australia has said from the outset that it cannot emulate the Indian Premier League, it wishes it could have a Bollywood- like touch to bring in the cash for its revamped Big Bash League.
Cricket Australia is sending Credit Suisse representatives on a roadshow to India this week to cultivate potential investors for the game.
Australian television personalities Eddie McGuire and James Brayshaw can offer a few things that cricket wants, starting with publicity.
As former captain Ricky Ponting said that cricket is losing the fight for relevance in a competitive sporting environment, Cricket Australia would do whatever it takes, even if that meant shamelessly borrowing from the football codes and adopting embarrassing marketing slogans.
"At the end of the day this competition is a massive thing for Australian cricket. They have poured a lot of time and money into it and they need to make it work and the players are a big part of it. Over the years Cricket Australia have tried everything to attract new faces to the game, whether it's fans, sponsors or participants", the Sydney Morning Post quoted Ponting, as saying.
"Right at the moment 50-over cricket and Test cricket doesn't really appeal to five to 15-year-old kids. With all the other competition out there with other sports ... I think cricket has fallen by the wayside a bit. We have to have a look at the structures, and the way kids are introduced to cricket these days", he added.
Oz cricket's obsession with the Australian Football League doesn't end with the recruitment of a handful of recognizable and influential directors.
Australian cricket envies football's tribal links, cultures and rivalries that have evolved over decades, which the Big Bash League is trying to manufacture in a few months.
The next task for each team is to build a membership base, a concept alien to cricket and particularly new to Sydney.
The task is rendered more difficult by the fact that each League team has only three or four home games to sell.
In the end, Australian cricket will need more than a superficial association with football to realize its ultimate ambition, which is to eventually invest enough money to support the longer forms of the game.
For this, it needs Indian players, who would not be released by their board in the short term, to boost the value of media rights when they are next sold in 2013.
In the absence of Bollywood film stars, one can be sure that Big Bash team would hunt for Australian cricket's closest thing to a movie star - legendary cricketer Shane Warne. (ANI)
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