Twenty/20 synonymous with money

Richard Dwight

Whatever may be said for or against the twenty over game, it must however be acknowledged, that it has instantaneously proved to be an exhilarating storm in the world of cricket.

Especially amongst the young and not so young who, caught up in the modern era swirl, prefer things happening thick and fast, quick action - No matter how it comes, as long as it comes within a limited period of time, as opposed to the long drawn out ordeal.

Undoubtedly, this form of cricket has turned out to be attractive enough to draw large crowds, who keep yelling to goad batsmen to keep smashing the ball around. It's equally true to say, that this game has lost no time to impress it is an enormously lucrative exercise, brought about by the collections at the gate and from yet other diverse avenues - where the beneficiaries mainly are the organisers, the players and not forgetting the respective countries, which will indirectly benefit by the accruing of foreign exchange.

As for the spectators, they will have to rest content with the thrill of watching the ball, times without number being hit onto the boundary line, or over it.

The game itself, as we all know is played over 3 hours with each team batting for just 20 overs. The winning team, is determined by scoring more runs than the other. It has therefore been fashioned to focus on batting, for it's primarily a batting game and every batsman rash though he be, has to hastily keep hitting the ball for runs, in order to ensure that his side does well.

The bowlers deliver a maximum of 4 overs and do suffer humiliation at times through reckless batting, which could be demoralising and, the wickets they take more often than not, is due to impetuous batting. The fielders are found to be on the run, running hither and thither trying to prevent batsmen from converting ones into twos and so on, or throwing the ball sharply to run out erring batsmen and, of course holding onto those catches.

As we see it, everything in this much shortened version of the game is well laid and sorted out, with the players being very much aware of what's required of them, within their respective 20 overs. In this twenty/20 three-hour game, the need does not arise for strategic ploy and the like, and the captain becomes a figurehead with little or no leadership role to play and, before you could say 'Jack Robinson', the game would either be won or lost. Be that as it may this novel form of cricket has become widely accepted to be ever so popular. Its novelty may not be sustained, but the game will continue to live on to be synonymous with money.

And so with a tinge of nostalgic emotion we watch 'Test cricket' stepping aside to make way for 'king cricket twenty/20' to forge ahead. Some even say, that as much as 10 to 15 twenty/20 games could be played, within the duration of a test match.

Test cricket we do agree hasn't been as lucrative as twenty/20, but has within limits systematically helped, but not content with this, we are now trying to "kill the goose that lays the golden egg." Yes indeed, going from what we hear and see, the bell has surely begun to toll for test cricket.