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The Big Bash League in Australia likes to do things a little differently and that is reflected in a rather complex set of BBL finals format which follows the regular season.
How do the BBL Finals Work?
The finals follows the regular season where each team plays each other on a home and away basis. Each side plays their regular season matches and the top four teams in the table will then reach the four team finals series while the remaining four are eliminated from the tournament.
1. What is the Qualifier?
The Qualifier offers a straight route into the final of the Big Bash. Prior to the 2023/24 season, it would take place on the day after an elimination match.
Here, the side that finished at the very top of the table at the end of the season will take on the runners up. The winner of the Qualifier will go straight through to the final of the Big Bash for that campaign.
The losing team will remain in the tournament and receive a second chance to progress.
2. What is the Knockout?
In a tight schedule, the Knockout game will generally follow on the day after the Qualifier. Effectively, this is a second elimination match with the losing team set to depart the competition. The teams taking part are the third placed team in the season, together with the side that finished in fourth place.
Once the knockout has been completed, the team who wins progresses to the next stage of the finals series. The losing team is now eliminated from the competition and has to wait until the following year for another chance of winning the title.
3. What is the Challenger?
There will usually be a gap of around three days before the last game of this playoff series takes place. It is the Challenger and is so called because it gives us the identity of the team who will progress to challenge the side who has already made it through to the final.
The teams taking part are those that have appeared in previous games and have yet to be eliminated from the competition. Therefore, the Challenger takes place between the loser of the Qualifier and the winner of the Knockout.
This is a ‘winner takes all’ game. The winning team progresses to the BBL final while the losers are knocked out of the competition.
4. The Final
The very last game of the BBL season is the final itself. The teams that progressed through this format now face off for the right to lift the trophy.
Did The Big Bash Have an Eliminator?
The Eliminator was a match between the fourth placed team and the side that finished in fifth place from the eight teams competing in the regular season. It was removed from the finals format at the end of the 2022/23 Big Bash season.
The regular T20 match rules applied with the potential for a Super Over if the scores were tied at the end of the game.
In the Eliminator, the title of the match gives us a clue as to what to expect. Whichever team lost that game would be eliminated from the Big Bash for that season while the winner would remain in the competition and move on to the next phase.
Is This a Fair System?
In any competition where a league system is followed by a knockout phase, there will be a debate over whether the format is fair. Often we see fourth place teams coming through to win the trophy, and that’s when these questions are raised.
The simple fact is that T20 is an entertainment format and fans want to see the knockout rounds employed after the regular season comes to an end. That’s why there is a post season formula, similar to those used in North American leagues such as the NFL and MLB.
If you read through the format you’ll realise that the system is similar to that used in other leagues such as the IPL. It looks to favour the teams that finished at the top of the table, so as a postseason format, I think it’s as fair as can be expected.
T20 cricket will always demand the excitement of a knockout phase, so we should expect a system to be in place. In terms of favouring the top teams and giving them a second chance to progress, the format used in the BBL is the best we have.
