Scenes from the BBL revolution

Nick Cummins says Sydney Thunder are going to try to repeat their BBL-winning 2015-16 season by telling themselves it never happened. After all, it is that attitude of aspiration that inspired Thunder to pick themselves up from a position of being the league's greatest underachievers.

"We have to maintain the mindset of being the team that finished last so we remain hungry and driven rather than thinking that we've reached the peak of the mountain," Cummins says. "In mountaineering parlance, if you're trying to scale Everest it's a more dangerous descent than the climb, because all the planning goes into getting to the peak and not thinking about how you stay there or get back. We really need to be mindful of that."

There will be a couple of major absentees from Thunder's campaign this time. Michael Hussey, captain and cornerstone of the team, is now a consultant rather than a cricketer. Usman Khawaja, pivotal to the team's strong finish, may or may not be around. For the first couple of games the calf-stricken Shane Watson certainly won't be. Cummins is looking to see more young players emerge after the fashion of last year's unexpected star turn - Chris Green - and has high hopes for Kurtis Patterson in particular.

"One of the upsides of the veterans moving on is guys like Kurtis Patterson, Ryan Gibson and Jake Doran who've been waiting in the wings and now given their opportunity to shine," he said. "There's only so much they can do training, and at some point like Chris Green last summer you've got to put them into the furnace and see how they go.

"Kurtis started at the Thunder the same time I did in BBL03, and the team he joined and the level of responsibility he was expected to shoulder four seasons ago were a lot greater than should have been expected for someone of his experience. Three years down the track he's a much more mature and accomplished player. The expectations of Kurtis are a lot higher as well as a result of that.

"There are quite a few players in the team who may have been part of the squad but weren't part of the XI that won the BBL last year so the desire to be part of that is very high for guys on the bench last year through injury or selection. The guys who've tasted success are really driven to go back and win again. Winning becomes addictive and once you have had that experience the feeling is how do we do that again, that was amazing."

This applies as much to the team off the field as the players on it. Early signs are, too, that Thunder are going to keep growing as the club of Sydney's west, starting with a sold out Sydney derby against Sixers on Tuesday night.

"Apart from the first game, the Brisbane Heat game is 100% up on the year before, double the number of tickets 12 days out. Melbourne Stars is next and that's 50% more tickets than the same time last year and the final game against the Strikers is abut 400% more than last year. Needless to say the level of interest is very high!"

The first time Jason Gillespie laid eyes on the BBL was as a studio expert for Sky on its television coverage of the tournament for the UK. "It started about 7am in the UK and all the feedback I got was people getting up, making their cup of tea and toast and turning the tele on," he said. "Everyone I spoke to in England absolutely loved it around Christmas time and New Year. And I loved it too, watched every ball. It was very popular in the UK."

After finishing up with South Australia in 2007-08, incidentally the summer before the start of the IPL, Gillespie ventured to Zimbabwe then England as a coach, finding success with Yorkshire. Those intervening years meant he found something very different on his return to Adelaide: a redeveloped oval, a professionalised South Australian Cricket Association, and blue Adelaide Strikers shirts - everywhere.

"I came back from living overseas for a number of years and Adelaide Oval's completely different," he said. "Yes the ground's been redeveloped but there's a different feel around the office, the staff. I've been so impressed with the SACA - I can honestly say towards the end of my playing career I wasn't completely impressed with what was going on, but coming back after being away for a time, basically they've got it together.

"There's good people, they've got the best interests of the players and our supporters at heart, and that's the core of any cricket organisation. It's a different town to when I lived here a few years ago. We have the highest average crowd in Australia and genuinely believe we have the best fans in the BBL - numbers would suggest that we do. Walk around Adelaide now and you'll see Strikers tops everywhere, more than the Australian cricket team or anything else.

"I've seen more in the last few days, shirts and caps than even football stuff the Crows and the Power. People have embraced it."

Last summer Gillespie and Strikers rode a wave of close finishes, including last ball wins conjured by Travis Head and Jake Lehmann. An injury to Jon Holland and the unavailability of Adil Rashid have necessitated a change in tactical tack too, relying more on pace than spin - namely the powerful England seamer Chris Jordan. The West Australian legspinner Liam O'Connor and the NSW offspinner Will Somerville are in contention to replace Holland if required.

"My first year here we made the semis, the year before we made the semis as well, so we'd like to go one step further and we've got to find a way to do that," Gillespie said. "With guys like Travis Head we feel with them and Kieron Pollard we can get some overs out. Spin plays a big part, we don't deny that, but when we were looking for a replacement for Adil Rashid it wasn't that easy to find someone available for the full tournament.

"We had options on a couple of guys to come in for one or two games but we decided that's not what we were about. When we found out Jordan was available for the whole group stage of the tournament we jumped at him. I said to the lads we've got a slightly different looking team and we're just going to have to play a slightly different game. That's the game, you've got to adapt, and we need to find a different way to win."

As for England, Gillespie does not doubt more will be sitting up early with their cups of tea this time around, as the ECB contemplates its own move towards a city-based tournament. "There's a lot of resistance from counties, and there's some merit in that, because it is different," he said. "In Australia we're very centralised in our major cities, England not so much. Somerset is a good example - they sell out every T20 Blast game - so their argument is if we sell out every game we play, what's wrong.

"I get that, but the bigger picture is with the population England have, they could create something so brilliant that in the future people look back and say that was a great decision. The counties have a stake in the game and I love county cricket, but T20 is about entertainment and getting bums on seats, and I genuinely believe England have a great opportunity here. The window's open and that window is now."

Over the past five years, Marnus Labuschagne has been an enthused spectator at BBL time.

His chief memories? "Watching Travis Head's innings in Adelaide when he got that hundred to win the game last year was pretty spectacular," he said. "Lynny playing at the Gabba and Ryan Duffield bowling Glenn Maxwell as well a couple of years ago, that was pretty cool to watch. There's so many good things coming from it and very good players going around."

This time, having emerged as one of the players of the domestic limited overs tournament that kicked off the season, 22-year-old Labuschagne is now going to be part of it with Brisbane Heat. "I try to be as all-round a player as I can be with my fielding, batting and bowling as well," he said. "My role when I get the opportunity to play will be somewhere in the middle order, running hard, getting a lot of twos and improvising at the end.

"There's a lot more hype for the BBL, great to see full crowds at the Gabba, 40,000 people is something I've never played in front of and it'll be a great experience when I get the opportunity."

So far, Labuschagne has been an attentive listener at the feet of the captain Brendon McCullum, the coach Daniel Vettori and also the much-travelled spinner Samuel Badree. This learning has been twofold - not only helping Labuschagne develop his own nascent spin but also thinking about how to make spin bowlers uncomfortable when batting against them.

"You learn so much from these international players both coaching and players," he said. "Learning about what Samuel Badree's thinking when he's bowling and what he's trying to make the batsman do, and in how much detail he's thinking about his bowling, for myself as a spinner it's great to think about that. Playing this format you need to know about the wind and what you're trying to get the batsmen to do.

"Then as a batsman you're just trying to change his game and make him do something different. He's so crafty and bowls such a good length, watching the BBL the last couple of years he's been very effective bowling at the start of the innings. Definitely talking to him is helping both my bowling and my batting."

Importantly, Labuschagne is now about to learn about switching gears from one format to another - the essential skill of the 21st century game and its endless variations. "You see how the Australian guys have to do it so frequently between Test cricket T20s and one-dayers," he said. "It's quite similar in the Shield and Matador Cup then the BBL, quite short turnovers. You need to work out how to adjust as quick as you can for each level."

Ask Anthony Everard about the possibility of the BBL out-rating and out-attending the international season and be ready for a very studied response. "It's not something we commit a lot of thought to," he said. "To be honest we try to take a broader view of the Australian summer of cricket.

"If you do that and look at crowds, the combination of international cricket and the BBL last year contributed to the highest ever attendance to Australian cricket in a summer. I think we had 1.7 million people coming to the cricket. The combination of the two, having a really strong international product and a strong domestic product as well that's only five years old, puts cricket in a really strong position and is our competitive advantage.

"The way those two elements can work together is the key and what we're seeing is that evolving. It will continue to evolve in the future but we absolutely see a role for both."

Everard may be Cricket Australia's head of the BBL but he is very conscious of maintaining its role within a wider context - as the vehicle by which more fans are brought to the game, ultimately progressing from TV viewership, to attendance, to club involvement, to the potential of a serious career. While the BBL is open to some innovation - like the possibility of a Christmas night fixture in future - others like the expansion of team numbers will only happen if they are seen to help that objective.

"Clearly what we're doing is working, that's not to say there's any complacency, but we're playing the long game here and we want it to be a long-term, sustainable competition for many years to come," he said. "While there might be temptations around expansion or innovations, we just need to make sure it goes back to the strategy and the long-term interests of the BBL and Australian cricket more generally."

The television deal cut with the Ten Network in 2013 added AUS$20 million a season to CA's coffers, and Everard said that all the BBL clubs will be projecting a profit for this summer. The amount of money they require from CA to function is also going down each season. "All clubs were profitable last year and all are budgeting for a profit this year," he said.

"Within the financial model the clubs operate under, there is still a degree of central funding that CA provides, and that was always the intention from day one to provide establishment funding to get them up and running. The positive for us is the reliance on central funding has decreased from year to year.

"It was around the high 60% in the first year and for BBL05 it was around 45%, so that's an encouraging trend for us. We'd expect to see that trend continue as the clubs become more self-reliant."

Self-reliant, of course, is not the same as independent. CA's formal ties to each state association and in turn each team means there are no conflicts with private owners, and no money being lost to the game. All part of the strategy, of course.

"We've been able to be really singleminded and play the long game in terms of league and club operations and finances," he said. "We can be pretty focused in terms of our decision making, and if that means having to make particular investments over a period of time that may or may not have direct financial returns, that's a good position for us to be in."

Let the sixth edition of the BBL begin.