Let me say at the outset that I like Twenty20 cricket and see it as a legitimate form of the game.
I was swayed last summer when I went along to the Big Bash and the Australia versus India game. I just could not deny the fact that T20 had the potential to broaden cricket’s support base, much like the 50-over game did.
Critics of T20 also remind me a bit of the old fogies who used to dismiss 50-over games as not real cricket, as pyjama cricket etc.
T20 cricket does have issues, such as the number of meaningless games, the number of ‘Premier Leagues’ emerging and players becoming T20-only players.
The current T20 World Cup has exposed another problem: what to do with a weather effected match.
First up, we saw South Africa beat Sri Lanka in a seven-over a side match (42 balls a side). That is plainly ridiculous. Time wise, the match was shorter than an NRL match…
All such games do is strengthen the hand of T20 critics. Do we really want a side to face a maximum 42 balls for a chance to win a World Cup?
The other rain effected match on the weekend saw our old friend Duckworth Lewis help Australia knock over the West Indies. Again, Australia got a result off the back of 9.1 overs…
Sure, they were in pole position to win, but they had a big chase and there was a long way to go.
Surely in a World Cup there are better options than to truncate an already short game?
Why couldn’t South Africa and Sri Lanka simply have another go in a day or so’s time? And couldn’t Australia and the West Indies pick up the next day?
Sure all things being equal and what not you’d like the game played on the same day, but isn’t that a better option than handing a team who faced 55 balls a win?
Unless a better solution is found to weather effected games, T20 critics will be able to point to these examples and rightly question the integrity of its tournaments.
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