Cricket Insider - Twenty20 is not the anti-Christ
by Juris Graney
It appears the conundrum on whether Twenty20 cricket is just a fad or the future of the game has been answered by those people who matter the most – the fans.
While sports administrators question the future of the game, asking the fans what they want from cricket will inevitably be answered with Twenty20.
It is now here to stay because the brevity and explosiveness of Twenty20 caters for the new generation of cricket supporters.
While you can argue the reason why Twenty20 cricket is so successful is because people are time poor and have the attention span of gnats, the truth be told, this shortened form of the game has something that is lacking in Test matches and one-dayers – personality.
While traditionalists firmly entrenched in the history of the sport continue to fight Twenty20 for no other reason than its supposed bastardisation of cricket, the rest of the world has jumped onboard and are loving every minute of it, no more so than on the sub-continent.
Traditionalists point to the Indian Premier League as the anti-Christ of the sport – an open market, glitzy, celluloid competition, which gives cricketers their true market value in dollars and cents in a good old fashion capitalist way.
But what Twenty20 offers is inventiveness that is lacking in the other forms. It offers the stage to big hitting youngsters who have no desire to stand in the field for five days when they can earn thousands of dollars by smashing their way through three hours of cricket.
Player burn out has been proffered as a reason why Twenty20 should be curtailed but what people are forgetting is that this new breed of smash and grab cricketers are one dimensional players.
They won’t play international Test cricket because they don’t have the stamina nor the requisite skill levels. They might make the transition to one-day squads and with their inventiveness and bravado, they will probably do ok and can only better the 50-over game.
No-one wants Test cricket to die and it won’t as long as cricket exists, Test matches will be played but Twenty20 should not be treated as a threat to the game. It is the game and yes a new generation of players and fans may enjoy T20 but they also have respect and acknowledge where its roots are based – in Test match cricket.
