A Big Bash Confession

I must confess, I have not watched any of the big bash this season…

As a sports nut and cricket tragic I feel terrible, I feel like a fraud, I feel that nothing can get me excited for the BBL and that scares me a little.

Am I over Cricket, am I going through a midlife crisis or is there only so much sport a man can digest? For me, the season of Cricket is just like a Christmas Ham. At first, you’re excited, you can’t wait to tuck in. On Boxing Day you’re pigging out on ham whilst watching the test then by the New Year, you’re sick to death of ham, and all you want to do is smash a meat pie.

I guess the most disappointing thing about this whole situation is that I have let my friends and work colleagues down. I’m that bloke around the water cooler who could give a descriptive ball by ball analysis of the game, easily wasting a good 45 minutes of work time. Now when I get asked if I watched last night’s game, I answer with a quick “yeah it was great”, then I quickly excuse myself to the restroom so I can check the results on cricket.com, before coming back with a really poor opinion. Sometimes I have sat in my car for 10 minutes before work watching the match highlights, so I don’t get caught out. Pardon the pun. This is all from a guy who back in the day, would play all day Saturday and some Sunday’s, then watch every ball of a test or one/day international on TV, then stay up late for the highlights on Channel 9.

So why have I lost interest you may ask… Well simply, there is too much big bash. Each night for the next month we are pretty much guaranteed a game on TV. Once upon a time when we had World Series Cup, it was a game every second or third night. The couple days break between games could cause much hype and the buildup sometimes outweighed the actual event. Will Dean Jones score another tone or will Curtly Ambrose strike back. Those questions got me intrigued and by game day I was hooked.

The current saturation of BBL games isn’t getting me hooked and in doing so has dissolved my passion for cricket.

But not all is lost. Like anything in life, we have our ups and downs, and although I’m struggling to find that spark with Cricket at the moment, I’m sure come finals time, the love (not Martin Love) will return, maybe even with a super over.