Game entering new golden age
Christopher Martin-Jenkins writes in the Times that while Twenty20 may be dazzling all, Test cricket will stand the test of time (pun intended)
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Christopher Martin-Jenkins writes in the Times that while Twenty20 may be dazzling all, Test cricket will stand the test of time (pun intended). He calls on history to give us a few lessons for the present and says the ECB could restructure its domestic competition to embrace Twenty20, the game it marketed first, even further.
I suggest three competitions: the County Championship, the bedrock; one 50-over tournament, starting as a league, leading to quarter-finals and semi-finals and a Lord's final; and a regular weekend Twenty20 league, allowing each club a home game every fortnight. For television, that would mean a couple of big matches each weekend to rival football's Premier League; for most clubs, it would guarantee mean ample television and gate revenue; for players, a four-day game in most but not all weeks and a high-profile one-day match each weekend.
This is, after all, just the latest shift in a sport that has always mirrored social trends. Packer's cricket in coloured clothes was innovative, it seemed, but they had played in coloured kit, albeit rather more tasteful, in the 18th century. Nor were 20-overs-a-side matches anything new when they were presented in fresh new clothes by the counties five years ago. I played them on summer evenings in the 1960s. It was just as much fun: matches were always vital and competitive.
Even the marketing of the game is old. William Clarke, of Nottingham, was every bit as much an entrepreneur with his touring England XIs in the 1840s as Lalit Modi is in 2008.
Meanwhile, Jon Culley caught up with Nottinghamshire’s new player Stuart Broad for The Independent ahead of his Notts debut. He finds, like many before, that Broad has a calm head on his young shoulders. While Broad realises that he will be forever associated with Yuvraj Singh hitting six sixes from him, he shrugs it off. His chilled-out approach belies his youth and he’s just enjoying playing Test cricket for now, and learning as much as he can.