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Like it or love it, the Twenty20 Cup is a roaring success and here to stay
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County cricket's version of Twenty20 is in full swing. In its fifth year, it is
pulling the crowds in again, dare I write it, against their better judgement or, to
stick my head still closer to the block, because they do not have much to judge it
against. That may be its greatest service, attracting the ingénues, giving them a
taste for a sport that many thought of as being long-winded and complicated. They
were right: it is, but to the initiated that is part of its undulating charm. To
those who know cricket, the three-hour entertainment, however well suited to the age,
is an awfully shallow version of the deepest game of all.
Club cricketers everywhere know Twenty20 is great fun to play and that the format's very
brevity almost guarantees intensity, even on the village green. The problem is that
once a side gets on top it becomes, to a tutored eye at least, boring to watch.
Arguably that is true of any game of cricket but in a two-innings match there is
always a chance of recovery from the most hopeless seeming of positions. It is why
there is real merit in the suggestion that 50-over games might in time be shortened
to 40 overs, played in two separate 20-over innings per side. I hope it is
tested in county cricket, as so many other good ideas have been.
When Twenty20 is played for money, however, it is fun in the final analysis only for
the winning side. Perhaps that is a jaundiced view, because, whilst I have been
keeping an eye on the first four of the eight qualifying matches played by each
county in their three divisions, my main focus has been on my home county, Sussex.
They lost their
first game off the second to last ball; their
second off the last
one; and their
third when they had appeared likely to win, despite an inadequate-looking total batting first, only to go down heavily in the end because Abdul Razzaq, bought by Surrey solely for this competition, struck 28 off one over from the man who had been comfortably his county's most economical bowler in the first two games, one Robin Martin-Jenkins!
Jaundiced or not, my honest feeling is that other than for professional reasons I
have no inclination to watch Twenty20, be it at international level, on the county
circuit or in the IPL. My sad conclusion is that Twenty20 is no cricketing country for
old men. Not that I consider myself old just yet. I want to have the energy to start
playing cricket a bit more regularly again, because as George Bernard Shaw observed:
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."
None of this is to deny the roaring commercial success of the format, nor the
certainty that it has come to stay, whether anyone likes it, loves it or loathes it.
From county cricket's parochial standpoint, indeed, it is the one area where the
"domestic game" can actually compete on level terms with the greater attraction of
the international arena, hence my
recent advocacy of a programme allowing one game a
week for each of the 18 clubs throughout the season. Surrey actually attracted a
sell-out crowd of 23,000 to the Brit Oval to watch the Brown Caps play - and lose
to - the Kent Spitfires on the very day that Lancashire had to be content with the
17,500 that they could pack into Old Trafford for England's Twenty20 fixture against
New Zealand.
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From county cricket's parochial standpoint Twenty20 is the one area where the "domestic game" can actually compete on level terms with the greater attraction of the international arena. Surrey actually attracted a sell-out crowd of 23,000 to the Brit Oval to watch the Brown Caps play the Kent Spitfires on the very day that Lancashire had to be content with the 17,500 that they could pack into Old Trafford for England's Twenty20 fixture against New Zealand |
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The ECB's mind apparently remains open on the balance it should strike between
one-day and four-day cricket from 2010. Their marketing departments is setting great
store by the findings of the specialist marketing research company, TNS, that is
being paid an estimated £75,000 for the latest inquiries into the views of the
easily pleased masses currently pouring through the gates for a taste of the razzle
dazzle. Broadcasting contracts after next season cannot be delayed much longer, but
the fact that the various television and radio companies have been asked to comment
on no fewer than 27 possible broadcasting "bundles" of international and domestic
cricket underlines the uncertainty of the current scene.
So competent is the ECB's financial management under the three main driving forces -
the chief executive, David Collier; the head of finance, Brian Havill; and the
chairman, Giles Clarke - that everyone seems to be prospering in English and Welsh
cricket at the moment, despite the near recession that is facing the national
economy. Crowds for the New Zealand Tests were good and for the four against South
Africa they will no doubt be better. The 50-over one-day internationals, passé though
they are deemed now to be, are being played to almost guaranteed full houses.
Attendances for the first phase of County Championship games, although relatively
small, continued to be considerably larger than for similar competitions elsewhere
and, as already mentioned, people are flocking in for Twenty20s so far, encouraged by
reasonably clement weather and energetic local marketing.
It means that the board can be courageous in what it finally proposes for the
future, if only its leading lights can summon the will. For so long the domestic
scene has cried out for simplification and modification. Clear minds would see the
value of a county scene with three competitions not four, each designated a
consistent place in the summer's calendar, so that people know what to expect from
county cricket and when..
Mike Fatkin, Glamorgan's chief executive, told BBC Radio Wales this week that he
would be in favour of exactly that kind of clarification. But most of the county
executives seem determined to keep four different competitions. Worse, the board's
master plan is still to cut the Championship to 12 games per team, thereby taking a
gamble with the quality of the England Test side. Yet Test cricket had been the main
contributor, through gate money and television income, to all England's cricketing
wealth until the sudden advent of Sir Allen Sugar-Daddy Stanford. Everything should
be aimed at maintaining the primacy of the Test match, both as the toughest, most
sophisticated form of the game and as the most valuable to the players.
Christopher Martin-Jenkins has been a leading cricket broadcaster, journalist and author for almost four decades, during which time he has served as a cricket correspondent for the BBC, the Daily Telegraph and the Times