Men of colours: the Melbourne Stars went down to Adelaide in their season-opener. Credit:Getty Images Those are the internal expectations. The external is all about the fans who have put their bums on seats, bought the merchandise, turned on their televisions and portable screens and generally engaged with the players, the colours, the big hits and the sparkling stumps. A number of my friends and acquaintances in the 50-plus age group, who have not so much followed Test cricket as revered it, have regularly surprised me with their expressions of expectation about BBL05. They may not have the command of the batting averages, centuries and five-fas, let alone the strike rates of the leading characters, as they do of the past 140 years of Test cricketers, but certainly their children and grandchildren do. My mates identify the teams by their colours. It's a bit like trying to learn the teams in Super Rugby. You figure out the colours first, then you work out who the Highlanders, Rebels and the Stormers are and what city, state or province they represent (although I'm still not sure about the Chiefs).

Sydneysiders and Melburnians have to make a decision. In Sydney the Sixers/Thunder division is a geographical one between east and west, although Sydney's sprawling urbanity and allegiance to state and national players blurs the lines. Melbourne quite rightly boasts the most ardent sporting fans in the nation so they will find a red or a green guernsey to buy and wear, but following a stadium rather than a suburb seems weird even for them. The colours – originally seen as Warhol crossed with Miley Cyrus – have become commonplace. The youth of the nation now associate cricket with brightness and cool. The colours have become the brand. The timing of the tournament, in terms of lazy summer evenings, the school year finishing and the holiday period, has worked brilliantly. Those are not new concepts and those months have been filled by Test and one-day international matches in the past, many with sell-out crowds. In the not so dim past, Test matches were interspersed with one-dayers and the fans turned up in droves to both forms. Even Sheffield Shield matches would be better attended in late December and through January.

Fans like a familiar schedule and, once the regular timings of the Test matches were changed by CA to suit visitors' schedules and increasing overseas commitments, supporters found it difficult to plan their summers to suit their cricket-watching proclivities. CA and the state associations spent precious little in promoting domestic cricket during those years. They were primarily concerned with getting fans to international cricket and the state teams were vehicles to train and produce the players for the bigger stages. State teams were loss leaders and investment centres rather than revenue producers. Now the fans – young and old – know when the Bash is coming and, like my pre-geriatric mates, the air of expectation adds to the excitement when it arrives. With a free-to-air network involved, there are sponsors queuing up to get their logos on lime green, magenta and various garishly hued uniforms, ergo more cash all round. This summer we have the added factor of a poor international opponent, who will hopefully be more competitive on Boxing Day.

The juxtaposition between the next two Test matches and the Big Bash will be interesting for the immediate future of the West Indies as a cricket entity, and perhaps the medium-term shaping of the Australian domestic calendar. If a domestic tournament can out-rate and out-draw the international team, then CA may look at only inviting the big three Test countries – South Africa, England and India – in the future and expand the BBL franchises. If money alone rather than investment in the diverse nature of the game is the deciding factor, then the face of cricket in Australia may be in for a rapid slap. It's not that long ago that India was a cricket-mad nation, albeit one with a fractured competition, dilapidated venues and warring regional administrations. Now the IPL has turned Indian cricket into a cash-rich behemoth, demanding and receiving worldwide attention, not to mention the world's best players. Similarly, Australian cricket may see further upside in expanding the colourful Bash and doing deals to rival the AFL and NRL.

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