Big Bash League: "Sounds Pretty Ridiculous" - Dan Christian Unhappy After CA Bars Steve Smith From Playing In The BBL

Sydney Sixers all-rounder Dan Christian was unhappy after Cricket Australia (CA) blocked Australian batter, Steve Smith, from taking part in the remaining phase of the Big Bash League (BBL) XI.

Smith was available to play for his home team in the play-off game against Perth Scorchers on Saturday. However, the CA didn’t allow the Sixers franchise to bring in Smith for the game, which expectedly left its players fuming.

“It sounds pretty ridiculous that one of the world (world’s best) is stopped from playing in the domestic competition. It makes no sense to us as players. It’s really disappointing from our point of view that that’s where it stands right now.”

“We’ve (been) talking the last couple of years about having access to the best players in the world, particularly an overseas perspective and it’s one of the big criticisms of the Big Bash,” Christian told SEN.

“We’ve never really had access to our Aussie guys” – Dan Christian

Christian pointed out that the major T20 leagues across the world like the IPL and CPL see all the domestic players in action. This hasn’t been the case with the Big Bash, as Australians are often playing in the summer matches scheduled during the same time as the BBL.

“Having played in a lot of overseas competitions all the other competitions have the best local players playing, so the IPL has all the Indian players, the Caribbean league has all the West Indian players playing, whereas we’ve never really had access to our Aussie guys.”

“Now we’re going to have access to the Aussie players because this Australia and New Zealand series has been postponed and yet we’re going to ban them from playing a domestic competition? It doesn’t make any sense to me,” he added.

The Sixers ended up losing the playoff game by 49 runs to Perth Scorchers.

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