Saturday, December 02, 2006

Twenty20 - The Future of Cricket?

India played it's first Twenty20 international yesterday against SA - and won. And the fan in me says it's probably the positive vibes in the team because of Dada's return to the team, even though he joins the team only for the Tests about a week later!

Anyway, so what's Twenty20?

For one, the innings are reduced to 20 overs (that's obvious, isn't it?). Each bowler, hence, gets max of 4 overs. No-balls are followed by a "free hit ball", where you cannot get out unless you are run-out, and so on. Players do not sit in the dressing room, they are on the field, a la soccer! Once a batsman is ruled out, the replacement needs to be on the field within a minute. The focus, thus is on continuous action - no more walking over to the boundary to fetch the ball, you got to run and get it! And what I thought was the coolest piece of the action - live chat with the captains on the field! We just got to "talk" to Sehwag and Smith for barely 2-3 mins during the match, but it added a whole new dimension to the experience!

Is this the future of cricket? I think so - I think it will definitely catch the fancy of cricket lovers all over the world. It's fast, it's continuous action, and it's short! Like a movie - 3 hours.

Purists were shocked when Kerry Packer (isn't that the name?) started one day cricket. How could he do it, they asked! Colored clothes? Under lights? White ball? He was vandalising the game. Pyjama cricket, they called it. But it caught on, and in fact, led to a fresh new approach to Test cricket itself, leading to a renewed interest in that format. Twenty20 will probably do the same, but to be frank, for now, I wasn't too thrilled - something was missing, something was incomplete. But (as I said in my earlier post) it was probably the change that bothered me.

So, is the verdict out? No, not yet :) Let's wait and watch!

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