'Beneath meaningless': Why the T20 World Cup warrants recognition, not celebration

Likewise - that is the sentiment of most cricket fans, as opposed to customers. I use that term deliberately and provocatively, as that is what people who congregate at T20 games are viewed as. T20 is a product, and customers are there to consume it. The problem is that T20 uses the same resources that are then invested into cricket the game, which has been in place for 140+ years and is now being willingly diminished in order to serve the cash interests of many a stakeholder, as well as people/customers who have an attention span of a goldfish. There would be no problem at my end if T20 wasn't administered in a manner that undermined Test and ODI cricket. But that isn't an accident, but done by deliberate design. And then we have the temerity to ask why we aren't as good at Test cricket as we used to be?

Thanks for the summary Simoc - there are plenty enough people who are very capable of seeing what the world of cricket is delivering. Some of it is quite good, but the priority towards T20 is making the sport worse, not better. I don't watch it, so I tick that box. But the T20 circu(it/s) uses the same pool of players that are meant to deliver Test success for the Australian cricket team. It's like getting a Michelin-star chef to be brought in to cook a bunch of Big Macs. I get supply and demand economics, but the business model that made T20 so successful could have easily been deployed to make Test cricket better, contract the ODI format to be more punchy and successful, and relegate T20 to the meaningless fare it was originally perceived to be. I'm happy to detail how, but given the overall tenor of your above post, I daresay you're too myopic to strategise how the game in 2005 didn't need T20 to survive. It just needed smarter strategic thinking. Hailing the benefits of T20 has offered cricket is akin to justifying the virtues of new coral life around the ruins of the Titanic.

I'm ok with people who like T20, and in fact, there has to be a few of them for it to gain the prominence it has. My question is how you want Australian cricket to define success. Is it winning Test matches and ODI World Cups that will live long in our memories, or is it in T20 matches that are instantly forgotten the moment it's done?

I'm content never seeing it again in my lifetime. It was special due to how unique it was. I am not looking purely at results, but also at process and setup. The setup is geared towards T20 success on the field and off the field, and success and failure in Test cricket, the format that Australian cricket has built its heritage on, has been flagrantly disregarded. I mean, the apathy in which two consecutive home series losses against India tells you the tale on how little we regard now our fortunes in the form of the game that should be front and centre in our nation's cricketing consciousness. If Australian cricket did everything to set itself up to succeed in Test cricket, and still lost, I could make my peace with that. But we don't, and then we shrug casually before embarking on another meaningless T20 endeavour.

It's fanciful for me to expect Australia or any team to reach that level again. But that's not the point here. The point is that we've neglected the setups that permitted us to ever reach that level in the first place. Had we had the right setup, a spare parts India side do not win at the Gabba or stubbornly draw at the SCG.

You could be right, but over time, there was a common understanding that the skills and abilities from 50-over cricket could carry into Tests, and vice-versa, as they both have the capacity and the scope to showcase aspects of patience and aggression. Maybe not so much in the modern 50-over game with scores routinely higher than 300, but back then, a score of 200 was very competitive, and the bridge between the two forms was less. But aside from setting up a big lead in the second innings that requires quick scoring, I don't know what skill sets T20 prioritises has made Test cricket better. I may be myopic, but I daresay T20 has compromised batsmen's ability to survive tough bowling, but rather hit out. That may be a method that works, but it's a low percentage one against good quality bowling with swing and seam movement.

I know I'm not the target market, and as you say, that part is okay. I don't need the product to fit my exact standards, and nor ever will it. I've made my peace with that. I agree with your point about how the BBL subsidises the Shield, allowing the players to remain professional. That is extremely important as you say. But that does not abrogate CA from some of their decisions that have left the Shield competition - which is the basis of which all of Australia's historic success has come from - as something to wilfully neglect. The strategy to try and find Australian dominance via the BBL and T20 is fanciful - India can do this far better than anyone else can, given the dominance of the IPL, and the fact their rules state no Indian cricketer can partake in foreign T20 tournaments. I wouldn't mind such a rule being implemented by Cricket Australia, where only the BBL and IPL are sanctioned by CA as competitions that players can participate in if they also wish to represent the national team. It sounds radical, but in a pool where only 66 people at any one time can represent our Shield teams, taking away half of that to dabble in T20 tournaments worldwide dilutes our ability to produce batsmen with solid techniques and bowlers who know how to persist with a line and length. These are the things that have been lost via our obsession with T20. Like you say, I'm not the product's target market, but I am also not voiceless in my ability to state the startingly obvious at how T20 has made Australian cricket worse, not better.