I know what you’re expecting to read here: that T20 is bad because it’s not proper cricket, and how dare they change the game I love?
But that’s all BS. T20 is a fine product and I can watch it, just not the same way I’d watch a Test. It just focuses on the wrong part of the sport.
The best part of watching cricket is seeing a wicket tumble. Friends and I often have said that the true scoring in cricket is the wickets and not the runs. In other words, runs are the tie-breaker, but it’s the wickets I come to see.
The most exciting teams have fast bowlers who can rip stumps out of the ground at will and spinners who can flummox any batsman.
Ever since the introduction of T20 the focus has been on higher run totals and boundaries, in essence making cricket like baseball. I like baseball, but cricket is making the same mistake that baseball made in the ’90s, thinking that a home run, or in this case sixes, are the most exciting thing that people can see.
Hitting a ball over a fence is boring. There, I said it.
I watch this beautiful game to see people work hard for their runs and bowlers trying to stop them. Shortening the game is all well and good – it’s understandable, not everyone can take five days off to watch a game but we don’t watch cricket to watch a team bat.
The perfect example of that was the last 12 overs of day 2 of the Boxing Day Test in 2021: the ‘G was jumping not because the batting was world-class but the bowlers looked as dangerous as you have ever seen. That’s what I go to see cricket for.
Why focus on the least interesting part of cricket to make it more marketable? Because high scoring makes money, supposedly.
I don’t want to see only 18 per cent of a team play the most exciting part. I want to see everyone involved and plenty of chess-like strategies in the field. The BBL is struggling because of poor bowling, not the long schedule. I like that I can see more cricket and watch players develop and grow across a season.
Trying to be baseball is what damages the BBL. We don’t need a game every night – cricket is about the breaks, the speculation and the tension structure. A season with 14 weeks, games played on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays with a week for the media to digest the games and life will be sweeter for Cricket Australia.
I want to watch the Renegades play and then spend a week hoping they’ll do better, not have to worry about the games being played every night that week.
In short, stop trying to be baseball and make every effort to focus on wicket-taking and focus games around the weekends. And that will make T20 the true national focus it should be in summer… assuming the nation isn’t wholly on fire again.
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Felix Stone
Roar Rookie
too much money in them for them to fall on their ass unfortunately, its much more likely for a stratification of cricket between tests and t20 with ODI left in the middle to die and australian cricket will suffer because we're weird in the global community and tests out perform t20 here
Reddy
Roar Rookie
That was a good game, the one before it NZ vs ENG was similar low scoring too. Wickets tumbling in both teams. 2015 was a good year.
Diggerbill
Roar Rookie
I still vividly remember when Bevan hit a 4 off the last ball of the ODI to win the match for Australia over the Windies. The whole country was watching, it was legendary. These days there's a boundary off the last ball to win a game every couple of days and no one talks about it. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
Marty
Roar Rookie
That’s because hitting a six with an 80s bat before they roped off boundaries actually required a fair degree of skill and strength. Totally different proposition to flicking a ball over a 60m roped off boundary with a bat that’s a 6 inches thick and has a sweet spot that runs from the sticker all the way down to the toe.
Gary David
Roar Rookie
Absolutely!! I am much more likely to pay attention when a dangerous bowler is on in a T20, like I always want to make sure I see Rashid Khan's 4 overs. What about the 2015 World Cup which was a batting fest, the best game was that crazy close low-scoring game between Aus and NZ. And what are the classic moments we remember, Starc bowling McCullum, Lillee last ball, etc.
Damo
Guest
I don't have a problem with T20 as a format but the sooner the big competitions implode on themselves because they cost too much and the cricket schedule becomes more even again, the better.
Ummi
Guest
T20 is never a cricket game it should be renamed as a six hitting competition.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Yeah it's an interesting observation. Before the advent of T20 - and even during pre-T20 era ODIs - seeing a six was quite special. It does seem that because sixes were considered unique, and a bit of an event, it was assumed that seeing a six an over would be just as exciting. But perhaps an example of the less is more philosophy.
JGK
Roar Guru
I came to a similar conclusion over a decade ago when I went to an early domestic T20 game at North Sydney Oval and saw Cameron White hit 6 after 6 with complete ease and virtually without risk. It didn’t feel like cricket was meant to feel.