Adjusting the schedule will trigger the Big Bash

KFC BBL is set to start earlier than ever before this summer as Cricket Australia wants to end the 61-match season before the end of January.

Big Bash officials are due to finalize the schedule this week, and the season is expected to begin on the first weekend in December and end for the first time in five years within school holidays.

The tournament finals will be held just days before the start of the Australian New Zealand one-day series on January 30, which means Australian white ball stars such as Glenn Maxwell, Aaron Finch and Marcus Stoinis should be available throughout the competition.

The Australian six-match test season, which runs from November 27 to January 18, means that probably all format stars like Pat Cummins, Steve Smith, David Warner and Mitch Starc will no longer be available in the Big Bash.

The number of so-called mega-days on the schedule is also expected to rise sharply, with the BBL double title being played at night after the day of the ash test, meaning wall-to-wall cricket on the East Coast from 10.30am to midnight.

Last summer’s top-level regular season BBL game was the first match in the double title that immediately followed the first day of the Boxing Day test, while six of BBL’s nine most watched games | 10 came test cricket at the end of the day.

More double titles will allow the tournament to end in January for the first time since 2017, when it will not be completed until February 17 in recent years.

Three seasons ago, the expansion to full home and away competition has meant that the culmination of BBL has creeping further into February and away from the summer holiday season, favoring larger crowds before the start of the school year.

Only a crowd of 13,000 who arrived at the Challenger final at the MCG 18 months ago, on a clear Thursday night during the first week of the school season, highlighted the difficulties the race faces when pushing a holiday.

The end of the race in January is the early beginning of the era, on the first weekend of December, about three weeks before Christmas.

It adds to the already clogged two-week cricket in late November and early December, which includes the WBBL final, Australia’s historic test match against Afghanistan and the first men’s ash test in Brisbane. The men are also expected to play in the Australian A-England Lions Tournament in early December.

BBL’s 56-match Regular Series returns to a complete home and away program as it was played last summer as a traveling caravan due to a pandemic.

A final confirmation schedule is expected later this week. The WBBL schedule was announced last week, while the Marsh Sheffield Shield and Marsh One-Day Cup matches are still unfinished.