Cricket Australia will consider implementing an overseas player draft for next summer's Women's Big Bash League as part of the competition's biggest shake up to date.
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Just days after recording the biggest attendance for a stand-alone match with 15,511 at Perth's win in Saturday's final, organisers have turned an eye to 2022-23.
High on the agenda is more night matches, after the advent of every match being televised saw the tournament pass the 5 million viewers mark for the first time.
That figure includes a 50 per cent rise in matches shown on Foxtel only, while the average for simulcast games on Seven and Fox was steady at 204,000.
Ideally, organisers would rid of weekday afternoon matches and replace them with Thursday and Friday night games to attract bigger audiences.
But there is also the chance of bigger changes.
The draft has been considered in recent seasons of the men's competition, but has been pushed back to next summer through COVID-19.
However it can be revealed it is now also an option for the WBBL, with clubs spoken to in recent weeks about its possible introduction and more talks likely.
The issue will form part of an end-of-season review, with the importance of overseas players becoming clearer this year as imports claimed player-of-the-match honours in 18 of 53 games.
While a draft is seen as a mechanism to attract better players to the men's league, the idea would be around spreading talent around in the women's.
"It's something we have discussed briefly already," Big Bash boss Alistair Dobson told AAP.
"The ability to bring the best players into the competition has always been a strength of the WBBL.
"If an overseas player draft was a way to continue that position, we would definitely explore it further.
"We will have a look at what the women's FTP (future tours programme) looks like and what the players' feedback is."
The possibility of a draft would arguably work better in the WBBL as opposed to the men's Big Bash.
The gap between the best overseas players and the rest is far closer, with 23 of the ICC's top-30 ranked players featuring in the competition in the past two years.
Movement between clubs is also already far more common, with no overseas players having a similar situation to Rashid Khan's long tenure at the Adelaide Strikers.
And there are less players coming in and out of the competition midway through, with the WBBL having a much clearer window in the ICC's schedule.
"Player movement and public interest around that ... is such a powerful way to build the profile of the competition, as well as the profile of the players," Dobson said.
"If you can create mechanisms and events where everyone focuses for a period of time on who is going where, it can only build the strength of the competition."
Australian Associated Press
