Usman Khawaja backs the idea of Privatising BBL, calls it ‘next evolution’

Australian batter Usman Khawaja is in support of Privatising the Big Bash League for the sake of its growth.

Currently, Cricket Australia (CA) monitors and runs the grandest T20 league in the world. However, the ownership structure of the tournament came into discussion with two state bodies - Cricket New South Wales and Queensland - vocal in backing the idea of a private ownership move this week. 

The main argument which remains in favour of privatisation is the increase in financial pulling power and subsequent attractiveness of the Big Bash to the overseas players.

Like a few of the state bodies, Khawaja also wants to see the privatisation of the Australia-based T20 league as it will be good for its growth.

"I personally think the BBL, if it wants to grow and be fair dinkum about it, we do need to think about privatising it. The BBL has been set up as a really good tournament for a long time but I genuinely think that's the next evolution, said Usman Khawaja.

Khawaja, who's also an Australian Cricketers' Association director, has backed the move of privatising the league. While CA is against the idea as the board believes that privatisation will boast the immigration of more overseas stars, but it'll cause major damage to grassroot cricket as clubs will be less willing to buy the local talent of Australia.

The left-handed top-order batter said he had a chat with the Cricket Australia boss Nick Hockley on the idea of privatising BBL and revealed that Hockley is also on the same page with him.

"And I've had chats with Nick Hockley about this - I literally chatted to him about it two weeks ago - and I think he's on a very similar page. At some stage, CA's got to let go of the reins a little bit.

Khawaja warned CA that if it doesn't happen then, BBL will be left behind the other leagues in the world.

"If that means doing it over a five-year plan, the ball's got to start rolling sooner rather than later. Because...if we're not careful, we're going to be left behind, and you don't want to do that because the BBL is a great product."