International Twenty20 cricket on the cards

Less than five months after the International Cricket Council said that there were no plans to introduce international Twenty20-style cricket, the England & Wales Cricket Board have said that is just what it is planning to do.

The ECB has announced that there will be an experimental match between the England and New Zealand women's sides at Hove on August 5, 2004, and if all goes well then the men could be playing as soon as 2005. It is not the first time women have been quicker to seize on initiatives than their male counterparts. In 1973 they hosted a World Cup, two years before the inaugural men's competition.

"It's certainly possible that we will see the men playing 20-overs-a-side internationals," said the ECB's John Read. "The introduction of the Twenty20 competition last summer was a pretty phenomenal success ... now we want to build on that success. Obviously the men playing this short form of the game internationally depends on the ICC, but at the ECB we would like to see it take root."

The ICC could be the stumbling block. In July it said that there was "no suggestion that there will be an international version of Twenty20 ... as far as the game's governing body is concerned, Twenty20 is the latest 'third-generation' game to be introduced to domestic cricket worldwide."

The International Women's Cricket Council, on the other hand, has welcomed the plans with open arms. The ICC itself is far more hamstrung by the need to consult and get agreement from its wide membership base.

Wisden Comment by Martin Williamson
To the surprise of many, the Twenty20 Cup was a massive success in its first season - more than a quarter of a million spectators watched the matches - but it won't be until next year's second season that we will discover if the interest was down to novelty value and good marketing, and the good weather that the inaugural competition enjoyed, or whether the 20-overs game really is a long-term answer to dwindling domestic crowds.