A new competition
Cricket Australia spent 2011 dismantling its own domestic Twenty20 tournament. The KFC Twenty20 Big Bash had been contested by the six state sides since 2005 and had run out of room to grow: six teams, a short season, and no obvious way to sell it to broadcasters or to players from overseas. The replacement was announced as eight city franchises, two each in Sydney and Melbourne, one each in Adelaide, Brisbane, Hobart and Perth, with new names, new colours and a licence to sign three overseas players apiece.
The first season was modest by later standards. Thirty-one matches were played between 16 December 2011 and 28 January 2012: a single round-robin in which each side met the other seven once, then two semi-finals and a final. Every knockout match was hosted by the higher-placed team. Total attendance was 544,920, and the tournament was carried on subscription television, an arrangement that lasted only until the free-to-air rights were sold ahead of 2013-14.
The league stage
Three sides finished on five wins from seven, with Perth Scorchers taking first place ahead of Hobart Hurricanes and Sydney Sixers on net run rate. Melbourne Stars took the last semi-final place with four. Hobart, who had been given little chance, were carried by Travis Birt, whose 345 runs were the most by anyone in the tournament, and by Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, whose 15 wickets were also a competition high.
The batting was less extreme than the format later became. Melbourne Stars made the highest total of the season, 203 for 3 against Hobart at Blundstone Arena, built on Luke Wright's 117. The only other hundreds were both made by Sydney Thunder batsmen: David Warner against Melbourne Stars at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Chris Gayle against Adelaide Strikers at ANZ Stadium. Thunder, despite employing both of them, won twice and finished eighth.
Semi-finals and final
Perth beat Melbourne Stars by 11 runs at the WACA Ground, Herschelle Gibbs making 71 and Mitchell Marsh taking the match award. Sydney Sixers went to Hobart and defended 153 by seven runs, Nic Maddinson's 68 proving just enough on a slow surface.
The final returned to Perth on 28 January. Mitchell Marsh made 77 from 57 balls in Perth's 156 for 5, a total that looked defensible on a ground where the Scorchers had not lost. Sydney Sixers chased it down with seven balls in hand. Moises Henriques made 70 from 41 and was named player of the match; Brett Lee had earlier taken 2 for 21. The Sixers, captained by Brad Haddin and coached by Trevor Bayliss, thus won the first Big Bash League title, and later in 2012 added the Champions League Twenty20 in South Africa.
What it established
Most of the structure that the BBL kept for a decade was set in that first summer: eight teams, city identities, a holiday-period window, and finals hosted by the better-placed side. What changed almost immediately was the scale. The 2011-12 season had 31 matches; within seven years it had 59, and the attendance figure that looked healthy in 2012 would be doubled.