Be wary of the Twenty20 effect

The current mantra in Indian cricket seems to be "if you want to win, go for young legs, fresh blood and ‘aggro'", writes Sharda Ugra in her blog on the India Today website. However, she wonders if youngsters in the future will want to take up Test cricket, the longer form of the game, given the riches on offer in the shorter formats.

Call this the IPL effect or the fact that limited-overs cricket is just so much more instant: instant cricket, instant fame, instant wealth. With the advent of T20 and the IPL, there is now more than one route to the top of the heap in the game and that route is a short cut. No grinding out batting or bowling epics over four-day games in two-tonga towns in front of an audience of bored tonga-drivers and their horses.

Before Dhoni arrived, Virender Sehwag was the last cult figure thrown up by Indian cricket, impacting both forms of the game. Dhoni’s career with India is almost a template for how India’s best players will rise to the top of their games in the future. He has gone from India rookie to captain in four seasons, his influence rising in the last 12 months, all because of performances in ODIs and T20s. He was even given the country’s highest sporting award, only the second cricketer to receive it after Sachin Tendulkar. To every aspiring Indian cricketer, the benefits and rewards of limited-overs cricket must seem limitless.