Twenty20 deluge gets under way

Today marks the beginning of the Twenty20 boom in England, starting with the domestic Twenty20 Cup and then the World Twenty20 in June. Next year the England board plans to add a second two-divisional Twenty competition to the domestic calendar - P20 - to provide their version of the IPL including extra international players. In the Times Christopher Martin-Jenkins writes that the board is in danger of falling heavily between two stools: giving the new tournament a spurious glamour by encouraging the counties to pay a lot of money to overseas players, but, having rejected the franchise path, leaving them to find their own sponsors.

A league played either under lights on Fridays, or in sunshine on Saturdays, through the first two thirds of the season would have been attractive and better for the players than two competitions played to the same format. Home games for the clubs finishing top of the four preliminary groups would have been virtually certain sell-outs and there would have been a case for leaving the existing climax of the competition as it is, with semi-finals and finals on the same ground on the same day.

That way we would at last have got round to three county competitions - Championship, 50 over and Twenty20 . Thereby professional cricket in Britain might at last have achieved the tremendous and long overdue bonus of establishing a county fixture list that is coherent, that everyone understands and that leaves room for the recovery, practice and preparation that the players and coaches crave. Once again, in reality, they are not going to get it.