Australia’s T20 competition, Big Bash League, will travel thousands of kilometres for its opening match between defending champions Perth Scorchers and Melbourne Renegades, which will take place in Chennai on Dec 12.Australian PM Anthony Albanese made the announcement after a meeting with PM Narendra Modi at Melbourne Cricket Ground. This will be the first instance of a foreign cricket league playing in India, said Albanese as he joined Modi in unveiling a sports collaboration map.Modi and Albanese were joined by former Australia captains Steve Waugh and Lisa Sthalekar for an event at MCG to celebrate India-Australia sporting ties.Cricket Australia hopeful of hosting IPL match in OzBBL’s opening match at Chennai on Dec 12 will kick off a week-long G’day Namaste festival of Australian sport, culture and business engagement, said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. He added that he was certain Australia would support India’s bid for the 2036 Olympics.PM Modi welcomed the announcement, saying that for any sporting league, staging an event in India guarantees tremendous reach and viewership. Following the announcement, Cricinfo reported that Cricket Australia is hopeful this could pave the way for the hosting of an IPL match in Australia in the future.“There’s certainly been interest from time to time at state govt level and at venue level, and with some of our clubs to imagine what that could look like bringing an IPL game out here,” said Alistair Dobson, executive general manager of Big Bash Leagues.Major T20 leagues have so far not been offshoring except, as the report said, when forced to, like in the IPL’s case by the Covid pandemic. Cricket Australia was reported to be confident that the match would be the most-watched game in Australian domestic league history for any sport, eclipsing the rugby league state of origin decider that broke the local broadcast record with 6 million viewers.A Reuters report said that the announcement came amid opposition to private investment in the Big Bash, which critics say could lead to the tournament ceding control to IPL franchises, and that Cricket Australia hopes to open up the Big Bash League to private investment to boost its finances and improve competitiveness in T20 cricket.On the sports collaboration roadmap, Indian govt said it would promote cooperation in training and capacity building, sports science and technology, and sports industry and investment.
