Big Bash League: Cricket Australia ditches coin toss

Cricket Australia's Big Bash League (BBL) is set to dispense with the traditional toss of a coin to determine which team gets to choose whether to bat or bowl first at the start of the game.

It'll be decided instead by the flip of a bat when the eighth edition of the domestic Twenty20 Big Bash League starts Dec. 19.

Instead of heads or tails, the question asked of the visiting team captain will be "hills or flats," terms more synonymous with the homegrown rules of what Australians call backyard cricket.

Kim McConnie, the head of the league, says the change "reflects what BBL is about." "Some people don't like change but I'd also challenge people to say when was the last time anyone watched the coin toss or really focused on it to a great extent?" McConnie was quoted as telling the Australian Broadcasting Corp. in an article published on the league's website.

The bat used for the flip will be standard and supplied by the BBL. Twenty20 is the shortest format played in the elite competition, is generally high-scoring with few breaks in play and usually over in less than half the time of a conventional one-day game.

The coin toss is generally considered more important in the Test cricket format when anticipated deterioration of the pitch or weather across the five days of play can have a significant influence on a captain's choice to bat or bowl first.