Twenty20 is just not cricket

Twenty20 is exciting because it is condensed. It is the natural heir to the 40-over cricket that quickly established itself in the late Sixties as the "new black" – hip, fast, accessible and satisfying. Previously unseen audiences were as seduced then as they are now. Forty years on, it is obvious to everyone except the people who run the game in England day-to-day, that the 40-over format is a white elephant. In fact, it is more dangerous than that. It is an energy sapper, an injury-sucker and a diversion from the accepted formats that are played everywhere else in the world.

Twenty20 is not cricket. It does not have growth, that sublime building of skill and concentration and timing which makes the Test game so ultimately intriguing – nor much of the declining, but sometimes still visible, fundamental qualities of the game which are offered down the food chain until, as in the crudest making of an omelette, the eggs are smashed in the version which is now having imposed upon it, in another money-grubbing lunge, the dignity of a world title.