Twenty20 bashing for Test cricket

CRICKET Australia is looking to clear a window in the calendar so Test players will be free to join the high-priority Twenty20 Big Bash competition and not have to worry about commitments to the five-day game.

With the Champions League pushing for clear space in the calendar and the Indian Premier League doing the same, Adam Gilchrist's claim two years back that one-day Test cricket would be looking for a window in the Twenty20 calendar is looking more correct every day.

The revolution is at hand.

Mao Zedong said political power grew from the barrel of a gun, but Cricket Australia believes it comes from the power of blunderbuss batting so beloved by fans of the shortest game.

The people that run cricket in this country know that Test cricket is a blue-chip stock that provides a steady return, but can be boom or bust depending on who tours, while the T20 game is a start-up with limitless potential.

Most importantly it can provide cricket with a new revenue stream, new fans and an independence from the Indian-run competitions such as the IPL and Champions League.

Cricket Australia chief executive officer James Sutherland believes the Big Bash can be Australia's version of the IPL.

The peak body and the states have poured a massive effort into this year's KFC Big Bash and are delighted to see fans flocking to the first games of the year, excited by the form and the big names on show.

More than 17,000 people turned up for the game in Perth between Western Australia and South Australia -- 4000 more than any one day of the Test at the same ground.

The big hitting of imported stars such as Chris Gayle and local heroes such as Dave Warner has proven so popular television ratings are up by 37 per cent in the first weeks of the competition.

Sutherland is keen to push the expansion of the league with the aim of setting up eight franchises around the country sometime down the track.

He is determined to put every effort into the Twenty20 game and wants his star Test players involved in the domestic competition.

"If you were living in Twenty20 utopia, you would have the Big Bash competition being played at a time where it had clear oxygen and also allowed the international players to be available for selection for their teams," Sutherland told The Australian.

"I think the Big Bash is going to genuinely ask us the question about when and how we do create clear oxygen for Twenty20 cricket. It is going to be a successful tournament, but for it to go to another level it may need that extra little bit that comes with not competing with international cricket and also having the best Australian players available."

Sutherland believes Twenty20 can bring new fans to the game in the way one-day cricket once did.

"What we have always said about Twenty20 is we see it as a way to bring new people to the game," he said.

"One-day cricket has done that in the past, it has broadened the spectrum of cricket fans over the past two or three decades and I think Twenty20 is doing that again and we make no secret of the fact that we want cricket to be more popular. People are increasingly time poor and Twenty20 is a vehicle to bring people to the game and arguably the other forms of the game are going to struggle to do that, Twenty20 is a great introduction to the game."

Sutherland also believes Twenty20 will create a revenue stream from a league-type competition which has been denied cricket in the past.

"One of the things that differentiates us from other sports is that we don't have a league concept that generates revenue in any regular way," he said. "In an Australian context that's what drives AFL and other sports.

"We have got a distinct advantage of having a high-profile national team that is a driving force for our business, but there is also real potential to have a major and significant domestic cricket league provided the entertainment proposition is valid and works for the public and all the signs are that Twenty20 is that and something that we want to roll out over the next three or four years."

Twenty20 is becoming the highest priority for state organisations with NSW and Victoria both scooping big prizes from the Champions League competition. The finalists from the 2009-10 Big Bash are eligible to compete for $US12m ($13.3m) in the next Champions League and the prospect has seen domestic teams shopping for big-name stars.