On behalf of Cricket Australia (CA), CEO Todd Greenberg says he would like to see Virat Kohli play in the Big Bash League (BBL). Players from Indian women’s team such as Jemimah Rodrigues, Smriti Mandhana, Deepti Sharma, Shikha Pandey, and Harmanpreet Kaur have played in the WBBL, but men have not been allowed by the BCCI’s rules.
“That’s certainly some conversations that we will continue to have with the BCCI – I would love to see, Virat Kohli playing in the BBL this year. That would certainly create some interest in crowds and ratings.” Todd Greenberg said.
Any Indian player playing in a foreign T20 league has to retire from every Indian team. Greenberg feels that including Kohli in the BBL will greatly increase how many of people attending the games and how many of viewers tuning in.
Why BCCI Restricts Indian Players?
Indian men’s team are prevented by the BCCI from taking part in T20 leagues elsewhere. IPL is seen as one of their key concerns, and the board feels that foreign leagues could affect both its finances and the development of their players.
One other main factor is that the BCCI wants to support and improve the landscape of domestic tournaments inside India, like the Ranji Trophy and the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. Top players taking part keep these competitions at a high standard and are very competitive.
In many cases, including Australia’s Big Bash League (BBL), overseas T20 leagues happen when India is busy with its domestic cricket. The tournament gets underway around the third week of December when the latter stages of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy are usually underway.
Big Bash League 2025
The finals for the Big Bash League 2025 took place on 27 January 2025 where Sydney Thunder and Hobart Hurricane took against each other and Hurricanes claimed victory by 7 wickets. Sydney Thunder made 182/7 batting first. In response, the Hurricanes chased down 185 runs by losing just 3 wickets. Mitchell Owen smashed a monstrous century and played an innings of 108 in just 42 balls. With such a display of batting, he bagged himself the “Player of the Match” title.
