World Twenty20 a triumph

Ed Smith writes in the Daily Telegraph that the World Twenty20 has been a hit because of the mix of exciting cricket and the sheer unpredictability of the format.

Of course, there must be a balance in all sports between fairness and uncertainty. If the better team always win, sport becomes boring. But if sport becomes purely a lottery – if, say, a tennis match was decided by a single tie-breaker or a cricket match by a one-over slog – then the result becomes devalued. Twenty20 treads this tightrope between the dramatic and the silly. In this tournament, the drama has outweighed the silliness.

The tournament also gets a thumbs-up from Duncan Fletcher in the Guardian. He says it has given the game just the wake-up call it needed to be able to compete with other sports.