Matt Renshaw has been dropped from the Queensland squad for the resumption of the Sheffield Shield against Tasmania.

Renshaw, who has played 10 Tests for Australia and was back among the squad last season for the series against Sri Lanka before being overlooked, made just 182 runs in 10 innings in the first part of the Shield.

Overall he has gone 31 Sheffield Shield innings without a century dating back to March 2018 against Western Australia. However, during that time he scored three first-class hundreds for Somerset in the County Championship in the 2018 season which helped push him back into Test contention.

However, while his first-class form has dipped he impressed during the Big Bash for the Brisbane Heat with 348 runs in a middle-order role.

Renshaw made his Test debut against South Africa in 2016 and enjoyed strong early returns with a best of 184 against Pakistan in Sydney.

Queensland will boast a strong top-order against Tasmania with Usman Khawaja, Joe Burns and Marnus Labuschagne available. Labuschagne is in the ODI squad for the tour of South Africa, but the T20Is come first on that trip which means he is able to squeeze in a Shield appearance.

Waqar Hasan, the last surviving member of Pakistan's inaugural Test team, which played India in Delhi in October 1952, has died in Karachi at the age of 87.

A middle-order batsman, Waqar's first outing in Test cricket wasn't too auspicious, as he scored 8 and 5 in an innings defeat, but he ended the five-Test series as Pakistan's highest run-maker, with 357 runs at an average of 44.62, including three half-centuries. Waqar went on to play 21 Test matches during the course of a first-class career that spanned more than a decade and a half, from 1948-49 to 1965-66.

He finished with 1071 runs in 35 Test innings, an average of 31.50, and hit a century and six half-centuries. His first-class average was 35.64.

"Waqar Hassan was an attractive strokemaker, who was ideal in a crisis and and a fine field either at cover or further out," Christopher Martin-Jenkins wrote of Waqar in World Cricketers: A Biographical Dictionary (Oxford, 1996).

ALSO READ: 'Pakistan's first tour of India was my most memorable'

"It gives me immense satisfaction to have achieved many firsts for Pakistan: first to score a half-century in each innings of a Test [Bombay, 1952-53], first Test half-century in England [Lord's, 1954], first Test half-century at home, and first to score two half-centuries in a home Test [Dacca, 1954-55], first century partnership [with Hanif Mohammad, Bombay, 1952-53], first double-century partnership [with Imtiaz Ahmed, Lahore, 1955-56]," Waqar recounted in an interview with The Cricket Monthly in November 2012, by which time he had started splitting his time between Karachi and London.

Originally from Lahore, Waqar shifted to Karachi in 1945 after being offered a job with the Public Works Department, and by the early 1960s, he launched a textile machinery business. The reason, as he explained, was financial. "I had lost my regular place in the Test team but my main reason for quitting cricket after the 1959-60 season was financial," he said. "I opted out at the age of 27 to establish my business. I had seen the likes of Amir Elahi and Wazir Ali living not-so-happy lives in their later years."

He did, however, return to the game for a brief fling as a player. "In 1963-64, after being out of first-class cricket for four years, on the insistence of the officials of the Karachi cricket association, I agreed to captain the team," he said. "I played only three more first-class tournaments in two years but we achieved remarkable results. We won all the three first-class tournaments - the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy [twice] and the Ayub Trophy.

"In the 1963-64 Quaid-e-Azam Trophy final, my second-string Karachi Blues defeated the Karachi Whites, who had in their line-up five Test captains of the past and future. I played for fun with no ambition of making a Test comeback."

Waqar also served as a national selector, in spells during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

The original ‘golden girl’ of British athletics turns 80 today and Mel Watman, who was in Tokyo to report for AW on her 1964 Olympic long jump triumph, looks back on her dazzling career

High jumper Dorothy Odam (Tyler) in 1936 and hurdler Maureen Gardner (Dyson) in 1948 came so very close, but the distinction of becoming Britain’s first female Olympic athletics champion fell to Mary Rand in Tokyo in 1964. What’s more, she broke the world record in the process … and went on to win a silver medal in the pentathlon and bronze as a member of the 4x100m team!

When I interviewed her at her home in Henley-on-Thames just before the Games she told me: “The greatest thing of all would be to do a world record at the Olympics – like Herb Elliott, for instance. That would be wonderful.”

Twenty-three days later her hopes and dreams became a reality.

Born in Wells, Somerset, on February 10, 1940, Mary Bignal, as she was then, first attracted attention while a sports scholarship pupil at Millfield School.

Many successes followed, including British records and a Commonwealth long jump medal, and by the time of the 1960 Olympics she was being talked of as a possible long jump gold medallist. In Rome she led the qualifiers with a UK record 6.33m, only to wind up ninth in the final later that day with 6.01m. The gold medal went at 6.37m, the silver at 6.27m. The problem was that Rand fouled her first two jumps.

Her confidence shattered, she measured out her run-up anew but it was of little avail and she failed to qualify for another three jumps.

In 1962, only four months after the birth of her first daughter Alison, Rand made a remarkable comeback to earn the bronze medal in the European long jump championship. She enjoyed a glorious season in 1963, which included a world record (alongside Madeleine Weston, Daphne Arden and Dorothy Hyman) of 45.2 for the 4x110y relay, a 6.44m long jump (the official world record by then was 6.53m by Tatyana Shchelkanova of the USSR), a British 80m hurdles record of 10.8 and further UK records in the pentathlon of 4712 and 4726.

Her annus mirabilis, however, was 1964. She hardly put a foot wrong all summer, which began with a 4847 score in the Somerset pentathlon championship back at Millfield School. The downhill track and other irregularities ruled it out as a UK record but it was a great morale booster. In June she claimed back the record she had lost to Mary Peters three weeks earlier by scoring 4815, while in July she not only won the WAAA long jump with UK record leaps of 6.53m and 6.58m but also tied the European 100y record of 10.6. She was in fantastic form for her final pre-Olympic appearance, in Portsmouth.

Admittedly, the following wind was way over the limit at 4.0m/sec but she had some six inches (16cm) to spare on the board as she matched Shchelkanova’s world record of 6.70m.

After leading the qualifiers with an Olympic record of 6.52m, Rand opened with a UK record of 6.59m, consolidated with leaps of 6.56m and 6.57m, improved to 6.63m and then, in the fifth round, produced that extraordinary jump of 6.76m. As her coach John Le Masurier was to write: “Technically it was superb – a fast approach, with the body becoming vertical as she crouched into a powerful take-off. A perfect hitchkick with the feet stretched forward together for landing and just sufficient forward speed remaining to allow her to stand up in the sand.”

It was a performance ahead of its time, for there was a headwind of 1.6m and the clay runway was rainsoaked. Off a synthetic surface and with that amount of wind in her favour it’s possible she would have jumped very close to seven metres – the sort of distance that would not be attained for another dozen years.

In the pentathlon, which started two days later, Rand again competed brilliantly to become only the second woman ever to exceed 5000 points. She totalled 5035 (10.9 hurdles, 11.05m shot, 1.72m high jump, 6.55m long jump, 24.2 200m) and finished ahead of Irina Press in three of the five events.

However, she lost so many points to Press in the shot – no fewer than 384 – that the muscular Soviet athlete ran out the winner 211 points clear with a record-breaking score of 5246.

Rand’s film star looks and sunny personality combined with her Olympic triumph made her truly the “golden girl” of British athletics. She was voted BBC sports personality of the year for 1964 and was awarded the MBE.

Her imposing list of personal bests included 10.6 100y, 11.7 100m, 23.99 and 23.69w 200m, 56.5 440y, 10.8 80m hurdles, 13.4 & 13.3w 100m hurdles, 1.72m high jump, 6.76mm long jump, 12.25 shot, 5035 pentathlon. She was also credited with a pioneering 12.22m triple jump in 1959 (“I don’t know why it isn’t a proper event for women,” she remarked in 1964) and even competed in a mile walk race.

Ann Packer (Brightwell), who won her 800m gold medal in Tokyo a few days after Rand, summed up what many believe. “Mary was the most gifted athlete I ever saw. She was as good as athletes get; there has never been anything like her since. And I don’t believe there ever will be.”

Evans’ run comes to an end after stampede to final
By BOB BALLINGER – Squash Mad Correspondent

It’s a wrap here in Calgary! The final of the 2020 Linear Logistics Bankers Hall Club Pro Am was a dominant win by #2 seed Dimitri Steinmann of Switzerland as he took down #8 seed Emyr Evans of Wales in straight games 11-9, 11-6, 12-10 in 47 minutes.

This was the first time we have had a Swiss winner in this the 19th version of the tournament here in downtown Calgary.

Steinmann was just a bit too consistent overall on the points that really mattered.

Evans had his chances especially in a close third game and had game points on a few occasions but could not push it into a fourth game. He had performed brilliantly this week, taking out top seed Leonel Cardenas in the quarter-finals and No.3 seed Rui Soares in the semis.

Again a packed crowd here were treated to great squash by these two youngsters…..aged 22 and 23 only!

One of the strongest overall fields we have had here for many years as all matches from round one through to the final were well contested no matter what the score line was.

So, onto the 20th version of this event in 2021……we are looking forward to that already! 

PSA Challenger Tour, $12,000 Men’s Linear Logistics Bankers Hall Club Pro Am 2020, Bankers Hall Club, Calgary, Canada.

Final:

[2] Dimitri Steinmann (SUI) beat [8] Emyr Evans (WAL) 11-9, 11-6, 12-10 (47 mins)

Pictures courtesy of  Bankers Hall Club

‘Squash needs a new face up there and if he puts the time in so will I,’ says Power
By MATT SCHOCH – Squash Mad Correspondent

Bloomfield Hills, Michigan – With prodigious skill, size – and an electric smile to boot – Peru’s Diego Elias has the recipe to become one of the famous faces of professional squash.

If the World #6 ever makes it to the top, his win at the 21st annual Motor City Open presented by Sturbridge Capital will be one to look back on that kicked his career kicked into high gear.

The 23-year-old finished off his dominant run to the finals with a convincing 11-4, 11-5, 11-4 victory over Mohamed ElSherbini of Egypt Sunday, winning his first MCO title on his sixth try at the Birmingham Athletic Club.

“I’ve been here so many times,” Elias said. “I’m just really happy and I think I played my best squash this week and I’m happy with the result.”

Elias lost as a qualifier in 2015 and dropped first-round matches in ’16 and ’18 – sandwiched around a semi-final appearance in 2017. Last year, Elias lost an epic five-game final to Egyptian Mohamed Abouelghar.

In so doing Abouelghar became the seventh Egyptian to win the event in 10 years, a run ElSherbini hoped to continue in this year’s $70,000 event. But at 6ft 2in tall, Elias’ length and power provides a unique challenge, as he proved this week in Michigan.

After needing five games to knock off England’s Nathan Lake in his first outing, Elias won his final three matches without losing a game.

In a week when upsets shook the MCO field, Elias faced just one seeded foe, sweeping eighth-seed Cesar Salazar of Mexico in the quarters.

“You saw the upsets this week,” Elias said. “They are all playing really, really good. The level of the 40th in the world is getting closer and closer to the level of the top guys.”

Elias had an important ally this week in former MCO champion Jonathon Power of Canada, who won at Birmingham Athletic Club in 2003 and 2005. Power has helped coach the Peruvian since he was 14 and assumed a larger presence with Elias after a disappointing finish last month at the J.P. Morgan Tournament of Champions in New York City.

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“He sort of was getting stuck, and I felt like getting from six to one is a long way,” said Power, who retired at No. 1 in 2007. “He needs it, and squash needs a different face up there. He made the commitment to work a little harder and put more time into it, and I said I’ll put more time into it if he does.”

So far, so good as evidenced in Michigan this week.

“His adaptability and intelligence is very high, and I think it’s going to pay off very quickly,” Power said. “This type of event is a good momentum builder. It’ll continue.”

Added Elias: “I can and I want to get to the top of the rankings really soon.”

On Sunday, ElSherbini came out strong in the first two games, winning the first two points in each. Elias responded with long, powerful strokes to keep ElSherbini moving.

Elias broke a racket string with a winner in the second game. A winner near the front corner of the court while Elias was moving backward also drew a thunderous applause in the third as his win became inevitable.

The length of the “Peruvian Puma” proved difficult for ElSherbini to combat, especially after four tough matches in the previous four days.

“My fitness level was dropping at the end, and I was bit heavy to the front,” ElSherbini said. “I’m going to learn from that, and I’m going to learn from my lesson. It’s just a setback, I will come back stronger and I will pull through next time.”

Not even switching his shirt in Game Three to his signature pink was enough for ElSherbini to slow Elias down.

“I came here and I thought I might get knocked out in the first round,” a modest ElSherbini told the crowd after the match. “I didn’t have more than three pairs of shorts or three shirts on me.”

ElSherbini was self-assured in an interview later, as he said he expects his post-MCO career to take off in his first season as a full-time pro.

Like Elias, ElSherbini’s career will receive a boost from his MCO finals run. Ranked World #47, ElSherbini knocked off the 14th, 10th and 22nd ranked players en route to the finals berth.

“I wanted to play well in the last match, but Diego was too solid,” ElSherbini said. “I’m not at his level yet, but I will be soon.”

ElSherbini said he hopes his success will gain him more funding in Egypt, a bastion of many of the sport’s greats.

“The main problem in my country is there are too many good players,” ElSherbini said, referencing other Egyptian pros who fall short on exposure and funding. “We will just prove ourselves with our racquet and they will run after us after that.”

ElSherbini said he will be back at the MCO next season, and Elias said he hopes to be back for a seventh straight appearance.

In addition to their share of prize money, Elias and ElSherbini won watches from Greenstone’s Jewelers.

MCO organizers announced $12,000 was raised for the Racquet Up Detroit program, a youth development non-profit that combines squash, mentoring and community service. Through the years, the event has raised $250,000 for the program, tournament co-chair Derrick J. Glencer said.

PSA World Tour Silver $76,000 Men’s Motor City Open 2020 presented by Sturbridge Capital, Birmingham Athletic Club, Bloomfield Hills, Detroit, USA.

Final:
[1] Diego Elias (PER) beat [9/16] Mohamed ElSherbini (EGY) 11-4, 11-5, 11-4 

Pictures by HENRY PAYNE courtesy of Motor City Open

I have never played in conditions as bad as those in which England won at Murrayfield on Saturday.

One moment you could kick the ball into the wind and it was not too bad, then the next time it would be going behind you. The passes were drifting on the breeze. Throwing the ball in the line-out, you would miss it by two metres. It was impossible to judge.

It was a shame because it had the makings of a really good Test match but I am not sure we learned anything about either team.

As far as game management goes, we have not really learned anything about how England are going to play going forward.

I cannot believe for a minute that England will look at video from the game. It will be destined for the bin.

Potentially that could be a danger going into the Ireland game in two weeks' time. Ireland have had a couple of games to get into their rhythm, beating Scotland and Wales. They have got analysis to build on over the next couple of weeks.

On Saturday, I was expecting the Scots to be a bit more able to adapt in those conditions. Every time England made a mistake, kicked straight to touch or knocked it on, you thought they would be under pressure.

Scotland had their chances and will be genuinely annoyed at not being able to apply more pressure to England on the scoreboard.

'You would have said Ford was captain'

One thing England can take from the match is certain standout individual performances. Fly-half George Ford was excellent in those conditions.

If you had never seen England play before, you probably would have said he was the captain. That was really noticeable for me.

George was getting England going forward and had a performance that he was enjoying. He was enjoying the up-and-unders, cross-field kicks and grubbers through. When Scotland applied pressure, you could see him grow a couple of inches in stature.

Maybe that was giving him the confidence to get stuck into the forwards the way he did and give them the praise they deserved.

The pack probably appreciated the encouragement more from someone like him, who would not ordinarily come and give them a tap on the backside.

England need more of that. It takes a bit of pressure off captain Owen Farrell so he can concentrate on his game.

I would like to think that the senior leadership group have got together and said they cannot just rely on Owen. Other people have got to take responsibilities and I think they did that.

There were a lot of people grafting away. You had the likes of Willi Heinz and Ben Youngs when he came on geeing everybody up and leading as they should be.

It has to be more player-led because on days like Saturday the pitch is a lonely place when you are playing in those kinds of conditions and it is 3-0 on a knife-edge. No coach can understand what it is like on the middle of the field so the players have got to make those calls.

'Ellis Genge made me smile'

I had a smile on my face when I saw try-scorer Ellis Genge's post-match interview. I have been there.

I was watching the interview and there is part of me that was, like Ellis, sticking a middle finger up to anyone who is writing bad things about you. I do not really have a problem with that type of response.

But it highlights that whenever a coach or player says they do not read that stuff, they are talking utter nonsense.

It does have an effect on how you prepare in the week. There are far more ex-pros than current pros and we know what the drill is. Just because we did not have social media in our day it does not mean we do not know what they are going through hearing stories about themselves.

It is a motivation and the types of players that can handle that type of pressure and use it positively are going to benefit from it. Those who put their head in the sand probably get affected in a more negative manner.

I liked the fact that Ellis was drinking a beer and telling it how it is. I want to see more of that from the England camp.

'England have homework to do on Ireland'

England have got a lot of work to do now to understand how they can break down Ireland, who have got a bit of momentum and mojo back.

Ireland are likely to bring something different, whether that is attacking plays or a style of defence. There will be plenty of homework on head coach Andy Farrell to understand how he coaches in these types of scenarios.

What is he going to be trying to do to break England down? Because he knows the squad, England have got to combat that.

The preparation is very much in the tactics. I would like to think England should have an advantage with having Farrell's son Owen and plenty of players that have played under the Ireland coach.

But Ireland will have the upper hand. They will have walked away from Saturday's game thinking that there has been genuine progress in their style of play and strategy.

England will be thinking they have managed their way through terrible conditions and tough opposition away from home so they will have confidence and they are playing at Twickenham.

There is lots of motivation. England will want to rectify what went on in Paris in front of their home fans so I think England will win.

They seem to like being in an underdog position and tend to bounce back well. The Ireland game will be a good opportunity for them.

Matt Dawson was speaking to BBC Sport's Becky Grey.

AUSTIN, Texas – The Hoosier Racing Tire SCCA Super Tour weekend from Circuit of the Americas concluded on a gray Sunday that started wet and dried as the afternoon went on.

Hosted by SCCA’s Lone Star Region, each of the six race groups ran 14-lap or 35-minute races, whichever came first.

It was a “liquid sunshine” kind of day in Austin, if one was feeling positive. The more pessimistic crowd might call it gray and gloomy.

Put Mark Boden in the first category.

Boden took the GT-2 win in Group 1 in the rain on his Hoosier rain tires in the No. 46 Tropical Passage Porsche 911, getting revenge on teammate Tim Kezman.

Kezman won in GT-2 and Touring 2 on Saturday, both over Boden.

“I love the rain,” Boden said on the podium. “I’ve got to have the rain to beat Tim.”

The good-natured ribbing continued, as Kezman shouted from the background, “It’s true!”.

Boden continued to pour it on to his friend and teammate later in the day, earning the prize in Touring 2 in the afternoon as the track was drying.

Kezman was right on the bumper of Boden throughout the race, but Boden crossed with just a .987-second advantage at the checkered flag.

Dave Ogburn led flag to flag in Spec Racer Ford Gen 3 to take victory in the No. 08 FAST Tech Ltd/Dalrymple car in conditions that were tricky at best, as the rain continued to fall just after lunch.

“I’m sweating like I didn’t lead every lap,” Ogburn said. “It was hectic. It was so slick and the grip is so different in certain corners. Where they’ve repaved, there is tons of grip and you can walk the throttle coming out of the corner, and other corners you’ve got to pedal it, and if you touch the curb you’re going to spin.

“It’s like constantly trying not to crash, basically.”

Ogburn’s win came after a runner-up finish on Saturday, when pressure from a competitor forced him wide while leading in the final corner of the race.

“And that wasn’t in the back of my head at all from yesterday,” Ogburn said. “I was just trying not to throw it away on the last lap!”

Spec Miata may be known for its drama, but Sunday brought out the best in the class.

Four National Champions – Jim Drago, Danny Steyn, Matt Reynolds and Nick Leverone – separated themselves from the pack. Though there was still plenty of water on the track, the rain had stopped, and each were on Hoosier racing slicks.

In the end, Drago’s No. 2 East Street Racing Mazda Miata came home in front to sweep the weekend, followed by Steyn, Leverone and Reynolds, in order, after each took their turn at the front.

“We all went out on slicks, and on the out lap there were parts of the track that were just wet,” Drago said. “I was taking it easy and the guys were faster than me in a couple of spots. Matt got past and I followed him in a couple of spots. Then Danny got past, and I said there’s the other two spots, I’m in good shape now. That race right there is why we all race Spec Miata.”

Don’t fret for the other three, however, as each earned wins later in the day.

Steyn took Super Touring Lite in the No. 9 Ocean Machinery/Nelson Engines/OPM Autosports/G-LOC Brakes/Hoosier Mazda MX5, Leverone claimed the Touring 4 class win in the No. 186 Flatout Motorsports Subaru BRZ, and Reynolds triumphed in E Production piloting the No. 71 Reynolds Bros. Racing/Hoosier/JPM/Vintage Connection/G-LOC Brakes Mazda Miata.

Each driver cited grip levels learned in the Spec Miata race as a helping hand.

The “wings and things” grouping ultimately came down to tire choice, with the speed going to those who chose to go out on rain tires.

That was in stark contrast to the Spec Miata cars that ran on slicks in the previous group.

Logan Cusson ran away with the race, taking the overall and Formula Atlantic win in the No. 99 Echelon Wealth Partners Ligier JS/Honda Formula 3 machine, followed by Formula Enterprises 2 winner Robert Vanman’s No. 88 Formula Enterprises/Mazda.

Everyone in the Prototype 1 class chose slicks, however, and that led to the first career Hoosier Super Tour win for William Munholland and the No. 00 PODS Elan DP02.

Michael Lewis had a banner weekend, even for a nine-time National Champion and professional race winner.

Lewis scored wins in GT-1, GT-3 and GT-Lite on Sunday to go with wins in GT-1 and GT-Lite on Saturday. The five wins made the trip to Texas from Southern California more than worth it, and set Lewis on a path to qualify for the 2020 Runoffs in all three classes.

While Mauro Fauza, in the No. 55 Green Marble & Granite Van Diemen/Ford, and Matt Round-Garrido, driving the No. 27 K-Hill Motorsports Mygale/Honda, were winning Formula Continental and Formula F, respectively, the Formula Vee gang was at it again Sunday.

For the third consecutive race dating back to the Runoffs last October, Andrew Whitston and Hunter Phelps-Barron were neck and neck at the finish line.

And for the third consecutive race, Whitston came out on top – this time by .015 seconds.

To view complete race results, advance to the next page.

Colorado Avalanche forward Nazem Kadri left Sunday's 3-2 victory over the Minnesota Wild with an injury after an awkward fall backward during an offensive zone faceoff in the second period.

Kadri, who appeared to twist his left leg as he back-passed the puck after the faceoff, returned to the ice for the third period and played one shift before returning to the locker room.

Avalanche coach Jared Bednar confirmed Kadri's injury was lower-body, and said that Kadri will be re-evaluated when the team gets back to Denver on Monday.

"I have not talked to the trainers," Bednar said. "He left at the start of the third period. I thought he'd be able to come out and try it [in the third], and it didn't go so well. So it's probably a smart decision -- if he's unable to play 100 percent -- to come out of the game. So, we supported him in that. And we'll see where it goes when we get back."

Kadri, 29, had an assist in the win, taking 14 shifts with 10:06 on the ice. He has been a key cog in the Avalanche's stellar season, with 19 goals and 35 points in his first season in Colorado.

Kadri played parts of 10 seasons with the Maple Leafs before signing with Colorado in the offseason.

The Avalanche are in second place in the Central Division and have won four in a row.

Just as they had for the first edition of the tournament in 2011, the Sydney Sixers lifted the Big Bash League's neon-lit trophy as champions, at the end of a final that was rain-truncated but near miraculous for having happened at all.

The trophy, and the identities of some of the Sixers holding it up - Steven Smith and Moises Henriques to name two - were just about the only unchanged thing about the victory scene, as the BBL has changed utterly from that first start-up event broadcast exclusively by Fox Sports as Cricket Australia eagerly sought a free-to-air buyer for domestic T20 cricket. Up to that time, it had been a product that not even Kerry Packer wanted, palming it off in his final broadcast rights deal in 2005.

Fifteen years later, at 61 matches with an expanded finals series, this was the biggest BBL yet, maintaining a trend of competition growth that has been continued by Cricket Australia and its broadcast partners. This despite the fact that two of its key health indicators, broadcast audiences and attendances at the grounds, have been showing signs that the league's extension is wearing thin. At the very least, it is not pulling in the sorts of big event audiences that characterised its supposed "peak" years in 2015-16 and 2016-17.

ALSO READ: The Big Bash League team of the tournament

Why is this the case? CA and its broadcasters are trying to figure things out for themselves, having called in former TV executive Dave Barham to conduct a review of the tournament. Barham had been instrumental in Ten's award-winning coverage between 2013 and 2018, before briefly helming Seven's new cricket department and then exiting for personal reasons ahead of the 2018-19 season. In 2018 he had reckoned that better cross-promotion of the BBL on international cricket and vice versa would help, as would better performances from the teams in the major markets of Sydney and Melbourne. The Sixers and the Stars held up their ends of the bargain this season.

Those who have chosen to throw rocks at the BBL have generally picked up the argument that it is too long and cumbersome, there are not enough star players, and the tournament's place amid the rhythms of the Australian season have been disrupted. First by the aftermath of the Newlands scandal last summer and then by the combination of a low drawing international season this time and the absence of the Australian side due to a tour of India at the height of the January school holidays.

What these arguments miss, perhaps, are a longer story of growth from the 20-game, state-based Big Bash that began in 2005, and from that of a tiny domestic cricket broadcast product at the same time, to the most sought-after summer broadcast property in Australian sport as of 2017.

Back then, the BBL was played over 35 matches, cost the Ten Network in the region of A$20 million a season to air exclusively in Australia, and pulled in an average national broadcast audience of more than one million viewers per fixture. After the 2017 peak, things began to trend down slightly in terms of crowds and broadcast audiences in 2017-18, the last season in which Ten held the rights, after an increase from 35 to 43 matches.

When the new broadcast deal in 2018 wrenched the BBL away from Ten - a turn of events that still sticks in the craw of many at or associated with the network - it was no longer just a piece of fan-finding R&D for CA, but a commodity worth as much to Seven and Fox as the international season itself, for so long the bread and butter of cricket rights deals in Australia. So from A$20 million a season for 43 matches, the BBL's value grew to effectively A$100 million a season for the addition of only 16 more games, before an extra two finals were tacked on this year.

As CA's head of commercial, Steph Beltrame, put it recently to SEN Radio: "T20 cricket already existed and the Big Bash at that time was really like a start-up. [In 2013] the description through media commentary was that Channel Ten had overpaid for this product. By the end of it after they had worked incredibly hard with us to build the product, I think the description was that they had a bargain."

Another $500 million is a lot of extra value wrought from a domestic tournament that, prior to 2013, did not really have its own broadcast deal, as it simply fell under the umbrella of Fox's small-time contract with CA to air domestic matches played between the states. CA has, to its credit, ploughed much of this extra cash into the game's community levels, the better to get club cricket growing again after a lull of several years, and also to capitalise on the interest of children and families that the BBL had been devised to attract in the first place.

At the same time it has used money to help build the WBBL, now sitting happily in its own window at the front end of the season. That tournament is a good example of how the cricket landscape has been utterly changed by the BBL, though within the parameters first devised by CA when the governing body stopped short of allowing privately-owned clubs. A degree of central control, and balance within the context of the whole cricket season, has been maintained, meaning international cricket is still seen as the pinnacle for players, the Sheffield Shield and domestic limited-overs tournaments still have their - albeit fringe-dwelling - place, and the BBL is very seldom if ever set up to clash with either.

For the players, coaches and clubs there is one imbalance about the balancing act: salaries for participants in the BBL bear absolutely no relationship to the value of the rights deal, unless they are overseas or marquee players fortunate enough to benefit from bundled deals with marketing and broadcast elements. Aside from the likes of Shane Warne, Kevin Pietersen and this season AB de Villiers, most players have given their time at remarkably good value for CA, something reflected in how it has become harder to attract overseas players to the longer event.

That pressure has left broadcasters decrying the lack of "big names" populating the tournament, although it was seen with de Villiers or Chris Gayle at the Sydney Thunder before him, that no player, regardless of how talented he is, can overcome the handicaps of a squad that is otherwise poorly constructed or dimly led. Perhaps the area for most consideration as far as high profile players is concerned is how to bring the likes of David Warner, Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins back into the fold for the pointy end of the tournament.

Those sorts of names, already contracted to CA, would help bring the BBL a little more in the way of star power to match the brief but bright lights of the Australian Open tennis, which serves as cricket's only genuine summer competition for broadcast audiences during the last two weeks of each January. And although Open tennis enjoyed several moments of television ubiquity around the runs of Nick Kyrgios, Ash Barty and Roger Federer, its average of around 726,000 viewers over two weeks was still outstripped by the BBL's 780,000 over closer to seven weeks.

Elsewhere, the contest for summer audiences isn't one. Soccer's A-League has been particularly hurt by comparison. Average A-League audiences have hovered for more than a decade at somewhere between 50-75,000 viewers nationally on subscription services, with free-to-air peaks like the average 358,000 who watched the 2014 competition final. The BBL's broadcast audience, even without the still rubbery figures of the streaming service Kayo places it comfortably ahead of average audiences recorded for the major winter NRL and AFL competitions.

So there is plenty to suggest that the gentle decline of the BBL's audiences in recent years is not, as the academic and social commentator Waleed Aly put it on ABC debate show Offsiders, "the BBL falling on its face". Instead there is cause to ponder how the BBL fits into the season, whether it should be played as a long tournament or a short, sharp league, and how much the drop off in crowds and audiences this season was influenced, like the rest of the country, by its extreme weather. From 2011 to 2019, the BBL had only three abandoned matches in total, and nine affected by rain to the extent that they required DLS. This season alone there have been two abandonments, and no fewer than eight fixtures requiring DLS, including the final.

That final, incidentally, recorded an average national broadcast audience of 919,000 for a match that looked so unlikely that there were even some first edition newspapers that carried columns indicating it had been abandoned. This after the Thursday night fixture between the Stars and the Thunder at the MCG drew an average of 1.048 million viewers, only the fourth match of the competition to crack the one million mark. These matches took place after a week's gap to the previous finals, indicating that after weeks of at least one game a day and often more, the appetite had returned.

It is worth pondering how much less CA would have sold the BBL for had it retained the 35-game length that seemed to hit the sweet spot five years ago. The subsequent extension in games has meant that quite stable numbers of attendees and broadcast viewers are spread more thinly. Precious few respondents to any CA survey about what fans want from the BBL in 2020-21 would find themselves answering "more".

There is much that has changed in the decade since that first final, but the thrill of the BBL as an event remains. What CA and its broadcasters should actively discuss is whether the bankable audiences over seven weeks of a 61-game season are going to be as thrilled, engaged and deeply involved as those who salivated over 35. That, after all, is why the BBL began.

New Zealand Women 171 for 2 (Devine 105, Bates 47*) beat South Africa Women 102 (Peterson 3-14, J Kerr 2-17) by 69 runs

A maiden T20I century from Sophie Devine, followed by incisive, miserly spells from Anna Peterson and Jess Kerr, ensured South Africa fell to a big defeat at the Basin Reserve. With the win, New Zealand wrapped up the five-match series 3-1 with a game to play.

The century comes on the back of a sparkling run of form for Devine: her scores in the T20I series so far read 54*, 61, 77 and 105.

After South Africa chose to bowl, Devine laid the platform for the 69-run victory with a typically commanding knock, studded with 12 fours and three sixes. Fellow opener Lauren Down was out cheaply, but she found great support in Suzie Bates who put together a 46-ball 47 in a 142-run partnership - a record for the second wicket for New Zealand women in T20Is. Devine was run-out off the penultimate ball of the innings, New Zealand piling up 171 for 2.

In reply, South Africa's chase never really got going, with New Zealand breaking through at regular intervals. Peterson and Jess Kerr opened the bowling in a spin-seam combination and while they had the most impressive figures, all the New Zealand bowlers - including Devine - chipped in in some way. Apart from Lizelle Lee, the South African opener who become Devine's victim on the day, none of the visiting batters got past 20. As a result, they were bowled out for a paltry 102 in 17 overs.

That their victory came just a day after Sunday's narrow defeat made it more special, Devine said after the game: "It's pleasing to be able to bounce back after a great game of cricket yesterday. Obviously we were on the wrong side of a tight affair, so it's nice to come back and put in a clinical performance both with bat and ball."