Former England captain and charismatic allrounder Sir Ian Botham has taken an axe to Twenty20 cricket, saying administrative exploitation of the format is killing the game.

The scheduling of another World Twenty20 tournament in 2010, so close on the heels of the 2009 event in England, has caused much criticism of the schedule, and Botham made his irritation clear.

“They are playing too much Twenty20 right now,” he told the Wisden Cricketer magazine.

“We have just had a T20 World Cup and within a year we’re going to have another in the Caribbean.

“It is greed, greed, greed.

“That is what will kill the game, the greed of the authorities.”

Botham believes that T20 cricket is a format that should be restricted to domestic and franchise-type competitions rather than the international arena.

“T20 has its place but not on the international stage. It is a domestic and franchise sport,” he said.

“I don’t want to see the best players in the world standing there and slogging.

“T20 is bastardising the game.”

The increasing number of T20 tournaments both international and domestic has added to a ridiculously cramped international schedule.

Numerous senior players, including Australian captain Ricky Ponting, have worried publicly at what the format will do to the career priorities of the next generation of cricketers.

© AAP 2012

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