AUSTRALIAN cricket faces one of the most important days in its history on Friday when its senior officials plot a course to rescue the game's fading popularity.
Cricket Australia has been planning for several years to try to recapture the hearts of young Australia by putting a six or eight-team Twenty20 competition smack bang in the middle of summer - Australia's version of the Indian Premier League.
The teams would be city- rather than state-based, so the Sydney Cityslickers or Waveriders - or something similar - would play instead of the NSW Blues. That in itself is a gamble because while you might be able to buy a cricket team you cannot buy history or the most cherished ingredient in any club's framework - supporters' hearts.
Cricket Australia officials were greatly concerned by results of surveys taken over the past four years which show the game had fallen well down the radar on the interest scale of young Australians.
If successful a new Twenty20 competition to replace the already successful Big Bash can revitalise the game in this country. If it fails, the scars will be deep and long-lasting.
There is every chance that if the new competition goes ahead, the two time-honoured competitions - the Sheffield Shield and 50-over format that has been reduced by experiment to 45 - will be substantially pruned.
That would pain the hearts of traditionalists but the game is changing and Australia must change with it.
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