The Grand Final in the BBL is supposed to be about who has performed the best for months, but the way the Sydney Sixers’ campaign for the 2025-26 season came to an end felt more like a marathon than a test of cricketing skills. When Greg Shipperd stated that his team did not have the opportunity to practice before the grand final, I thought he was giving excuses; however, it seemed like a statement of how poorly they were treated.
The numbers reveal a difficult picture. Four cities in eight days. Three days of two matches. A qualifying loss in Perth on Tuesday, a Challenger win in Sydney on Friday night, then back on a flight to Perth on Saturday to play in Sunday’s final. By the time the Sixers came onto the field at Optus Stadium in front of a new attendance record of 55,018, they were already exhausted from their travel schedule.
Travel Fatigue Masquerading as Form
The Sixers’ lackluster batting effort from the outside may have seemed to be an example of choking in the big league. However, the same situation was likely to be caused by physical and cognitive fatigue. In sports science, there are no two ways about it; elite performance declines significantly as recovery time shortens below 72 hours (with longer travel), particularly when traveling for extended periods of time domestically.
No Training, No Tactical Reset
Shipperd’s most severe criticism wasn’t related to traveling for the game alone, but with the lack of a pre-Grand Final training session. This is extremely rare in elite sports. The purpose of training on the eve of a final isn’t for physical conditioning; it is to calibrate your play to the conditions on the field, such as the pitch pace, size of boundaries, and how you will line up against the opposing bowlers.
Optus Stadium is not an ordinary sports ground; it has a specific bounce, very square boundaries, and specific evening conditions that require special planning. The Sixers did not have a practice session at Optus Stadium, so they were essentially playing by ear against a Perth team that plays about half of its games at Optus Stadium.
Scheduling That Rewards Geography, Not Merit
The current BBL finals format already has a major advantage for the team that qualifies first in order of qualification, which was obviously the Perth Scorchers this year. The issue isn’t so much about whether or not there should be an advantage, but rather it is about overkill. If one team is repeatedly having to travel across the country, while the other remains at home, then the competition can become less balanced than a true incentive.
The other leagues have dealt with that issue previously. The IPL has staggered its playoffs so the final two teams can have rest days. Even the NBA is well known for the amount of travel they do, yet the NBA adds a couple of days to the end of each playoff round to allow the teams time to recover. The BBL’s short finals schedule appears to be driven by the desire to accommodate television broadcasting rather than to provide an equitable experience for all participants.
Rain, Risk, and the Umpiring Benchmark
What had been a situation of extreme fatigue was made even worse by the playing conditions. The rain was getting heavier and heavier as the Scorchers chased down their target, but the match would continue. Shipperd referenced an earlier match at Hobart where the players played through heavy rain; he seemed to be suggesting that if the umpires were going to follow the precedent set in Hobart, they should do so consistently rather than make judgments based on current playing conditions.
Therefore, if the BBL wants its finals to be remembered for their cricketing excellence (as opposed to being remembered by way of caveats), then better scheduling, perhaps an Australia Day Monday decider, needs to go beyond a suggestion and become a viable solution.
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