Few people in Pakistan watch the Big Bash League any longer. After all, it is no longer 2014, in the heyday of that league when the atmosphere, resplendence and unapologetic Australiana of the product being marketed were draws in themselves. Pakistan did not have a league of its own, and the exclusion of their players from the IPL was well underway. On cold, wintry mornings, the warm glow of cricket being played in summer somewhere with over 80,000 rammed in when all Pakistan knew was soullessly empty stadiums in the UAE often proved difficult to resist.
A lot changed in the decade since as Pakistan established its own league amidst an explosion in T20 competitions around the world. The BBL fell down the T20 pecking order and felt hollowed out, its relevance to South Asian audiences becoming harder to define.
Crumbs of content made their way to Pakistani social media around the festive period each year as a friendly reminder the tournament was still knocking about. A fielder might have taken a stunning, albeit controversial, catch on the boundary, which was debated for a couple of days. Or the odd Pakistani who stumbled their way into the competition might have had a great tournament, and what it meant for the Pakistan side was breathlessly discussed. (On which count, does anyone know what Dilbar Hussain is currently up to?)
This year, though, there is a distinctly green hue at the BBL. It might be a stretch to call it a Pakistan-themed edition of the league, but no overseas nation bar England is contributing as many players as Pakistan to the BBL. More than just the numbers, though, it is the cream of Pakistan's crop that decorates the squad lists. Babar Azam, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Mohammad Rizwan, Shadab Khan, Haris Rauf and Hasan Ali will all feature, most either plucked up in pre-arranged signings ahead of the draft or as first pick, in a calculated attempt to go big on Pakistan. Much of the promotion around the tournament within Australia heavily features this Pakistan contingent, whose marketability - especially among Australia's sizeable Pakistani diaspora - the BBL has leaned on in its build-up.
Afridi was among the players Brisbane Heat would front up to the media to sprinkle a bit of stardust with the tournament's first game on Sunday. Afridi was Heat's first signing, and his first match will be against another elite Pakistani signing in Rizwan of Melbourne Renegades. In a touch of palace intrigue, Afridi replaced Rizwan as Pakistan's ODI captain earlier this year; both have held the T20I armband within the past two years.
Afridi was happy to lay it on thick. "It [is] well-renowned as the best league and... the best cricket with the best players," he said. "We play our first game against Rizzy - a world-quality player. And Babar's here as well. They know me, I know them. Hopefully we play some good cricket here. And we're really hopeful we get the Pakistani support, and the Asian community as a whole."
It is, perhaps, a curious time to go all in on Pakistan, with the nation's international cricketing stock at something of a low ebb. They may have won 21 T20Is this year, more than ever in their history, but part of that was possible due to the lower-profile nature of the sides they competed against. Eighteen of their victories came against Bangladesh, West Indies, Afghanistan, Oman, UAE, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, while of the 11 they played against New Zealand, India and South Africa, they managed just three wins.
But the latent demand for Pakistan's biggest T20 stars always existed and, this year, the PCB has relaxed their notoriously miserly no-objection certificate (NOC) policies enough to allow the BBL to unleash it. The past half decade saw the PCB adopt some variation of an NOC policy which allowed Pakistan's players to participate in a maximum of two overseas leagues, and often less owing to a rammed international calendar.
For the big names, BBL involvement, even when it did come, was limited when international cricket somewhere or other invariably forced them to cut their stints short. Usama Mir, famously, was summoned back after just five games with Melbourne Stars, and then refused an NOC to play the Blast because he was deemed to have maxed out his annual overseas league participation.
NOCs are still ultimately subject to the rules, and at times caprices, of the PCB; the day after Pakistan's Asia Cup final loss, player agents were told all NOCs - including for those currently at the BBL - had been revoked. But that instruction never came to official fruition; for all that the current administration has struggled with when it comes to management of Pakistan cricket, they appear to have settled on a radically simple maxim: if there is no international cricket, let players go where they like.
Having come to a behind-the-scenes arrangement with Cricket Australia to this effect, the BBL was able to snap up the biggest Pakistan names: after an extensively busy year, Pakistan have all of December and nearly all of January completely free of international cricket. Other leagues have benefitted, too, from this largesse; there are four Pakistanis in the ongoing ILT20, another eight have been signed up by the Bangladesh Premier League.
But most of the Pakistani focus and interest is squarely in the Big Bash and Australia, a country whose cricketing opinions Pakistan attach an almost reverential value to. Earlier this week, Wasim Akram effusively congratulated Mitchell Starc for overtaking his Test wickets tally to become the most prolific left-arm seamer in Test history, with Starc politely handing the baton back by calling Akram "a far better bowler than I am". The "no, you first" bonhomie continued when Afridi praised Starc as a bowler he had "been looking up to since the 2015 World Cup".
Some creases between the two boards still need sorting out; in the past fortnight, Pakistan announced a brief three-T20I series in Sri Lanka in early January as the BBL enters its business stages. The league is keen to hold on to its Pakistani players during that time, with the PCB yet to decide on whether to call them up. But the general atmosphere of conviviality and collaboration between the two boards makes it a surprisingly good time to be a Pakistani cricket fan in Australia.
And for once, those fans will actually be able to get their fill of it in Australia. And depending on how the next six weeks go, a league Pakistan was once fascinated by could become one they look to every year with real warmth rather than mere curiosity.