Hayden not worried by T20's influence
Matthew Hayden tells Peter Lalor of the Australian that cricket lovers should stop worrying so much about Twenty20 breeding a generation of batsman who can't leave the ball outside the off stump, and suggests that perhaps there is too much focus
Nikita Bastian
25-Feb-2013
Matthew Hayden tells Peter Lalor of the Australian that cricket lovers should stop worrying so much about Twenty20 breeding a generation of batsman who can't leave the ball outside the off stump, and suggests that perhaps there is too much focus on Test cricket at times.
"We are an entertainment package across the board now. In the end that's what I really enjoyed about Test cricket; it was how I could really bring to the table those skill sets I had for one-dayers and learned in Twenty20 cricket ... Apart from Ashes Tests and the Indian summer, I think as a cricket lover that Test matches sometimes have leaden strides despite all the concentration on them and that reeks of over scheduled matches."
Greg Baum, writing in the Age, says going by Cricket Australia's media releases during the Big Bash League's launch, the board thinks the league will attract new fans to the game, but seemingly takes these new fans for fools.
''The Melbourne Stars have launched their season with a bang,'' said one [release]. Ah, the good old reliable bang launch. You might have expected, for this new game, an updated bang, but no: this was the usual, stock-standard, time-tested, good-to-go bang, unchanged from the time of Bradman. This missive also talked about some bloke called Hussy, but what's an ''e'' between friends? ... The Melbourne Renegades tried a bit harder. Their pitch to the media told of how they would unveil their ''look, attitude and ambition''. They will, it added, be taking a ''super-cool, all-out-attacking attitude''. And there we were, thinking that they would block it out for the first 10 overs, then reassess.
Nikita Bastian is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo