At the end of the day column | Bathurst Orange Inter District Cricket's top five finals flaw

The bright lights, big hits, change in team names and international stars has led to short-form cricket, again (just like World Series Cricket in the '80s), taking centre stage over the summer months.

All of the above has meant more bums on seats and more eyeballs on television screens around the country.

It's great for the game - well, most of it is.

The length of the BBL season has come under fire in recent years - there's something like 60 games plus finals on the schedule - and there's also been chat about expansion, with a couple of new teams likely to push the amount of games well beyond its current mark.

That saturation of Twenty20 cricket throughout December and January and then a little into February too has led many to debate whether Cricket Australia and the BBL would be better served looking at quality over quantity over the Christmas break.

That though, for us, is a debate for another time.

Right now, the easiest issue for the game to tackle has to be the obscure and unfair finals system in place.

The BBL's new-look finals series kicked off two years ago, with five teams included in the post-season.

Take a deep breath ... here we go:

One plays two in 'The Qualifier', with the winner the first team through to the grand final.

Four plays five in 'The Eliminator', with the loser gone and the winner progressing through to 'The Knockout', where they'll play team three.

The winner of 'The Knockout' then goes on to 'The Challenge' where they play the team that lost 'The Qualifier'. And from there a winner will progress through to the grand final, too.

Qualifiers. Eliminators. Challengers ... we get it. It fits in with the bright lights, big hits formula that the BBL has made its own now for over a decade.

But the whacky top five system is being sold as something it's not.

When it was launched for BBL09, Cricket Australia said the new format was "introduced to provide a greater reward for those teams finishing in the top two, while also keeping more teams in the hunt in the home and away season's latter stages".

The purpose of a top five system has to be to reward the top three. Give those teams that have dominated the year a second chance should they drop a game in the finals series.

This system does not. As was the case this summer, the team finishing third can lose its first finals game and then bow out. The Sydney Thunder had played better than a first round exit from the finals in the last BBL. But they didn't get another shot.

The system is flawed, and should be scrapped.

Which is why it's all-the-more head scratching to see that same finals system - qualifiers, eliminations and knockouts - being used throughout the business end of the Bathurst Orange Inter District Cricket season.

A 10 team competition, the BOIDC needs a top five for finals - there's no doubting that.

But the traditional method has to be used.

It would be horrible to see what has happened to the Sydney Thunder in past BBLs be inflicted on teams in the BOIDC.

St Pat's Old Boys have been one of the best sides in the competition all year, but last weekend was thrust into a sudden death semi-final because the boys in blue and gold finished third - by a single point.

City Colts weren't good enough to knock St Pat's off. In fact, Colts were hammered and Adam Ryan's men proved why they've been such a good side, for the last couple of summers.

But sudden death sport is a different beast. And funny things happen in finals games. St Pat's didn't deserve that in week one of the finals.

Nine wins should have been enough to earn the club a second bite at the finals cherry.

The Whitney Cup, the Dubbo District Cricket Association's first grade competition, runs a top four system. One takes on two, three plays four. The loser of the top-two clash then plays the winner of the elimination game, with a grand final the following week. There's a clear incentive to finish in the top two - that second crack in the finals.

And that same incentive should be there to finish in the top three in a five-team finals series.

The Big Bash has many different aspects to it that are worth considering in country cricket.

The bright lights. Yep. Night cricket is the best. Getting the best of the best on board. Lock it in. Competition is a must.

But, let's not try and make the BOIDC competition something it's not. And certainly adopting a flawed finals system isn't one of those aspects worth a run for our Saturday competition.

Where we can, let's reward teams for that consistency shown over the course of 15 competition rounds, not throw them to the wolves for the sake of a bit of BBL glitz and glamour when we hit finals and March rolls around.

Let's try this top five system:

In our books, it's the only fair top five system on offer; the top three must get a second chance. They've earned it. It's that simple.

Let's be blunt: we've avoid a travesty this summer while dabbling with that BBL finals format. Bite the bullet, make the change and let's reward consistency.

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