T-20 - Licensed to thrill!

After a long hiatus, I get a nice excuse to update this almost defunct blog. Having been caught in the typically infinite loop of wake up- travel to office – work - travel back- sleep-wake up, cricket’s been one of the things to look forward to in these days. And what an opportune moment for sure :-) India and Pakistan face off today in one of the most unlikely and dream encounters – a World Cup final in cricket. We’ll look at both these wonderful young teams’ dream run in this tournament later on, first this T20 concept needs a look-in.

“What a ridiculous slam-bang version!!”; “This slog-fest isn’t going to last long, this is just not cricket!". “T-20 is destroying traditional cricket and making a mockery of talent”. Hundreds of such accusations have been hurled on the newest baby in international cricket. It’s a baby without proper pre and post-natal care, without even a mid-wife for that matter! Rules are continuously changing, simply because there are no rules, they are being defined with every match!

But before jumping onto the bandwagon of criticism, let’s just pause for a moment, take a deep breath in this hurricane atmosphere of sixes and lightning matches, and consider some of the aspects of this format. For a start, it’s got some really good things going for it. The administrators have been wise enough to retain the same format of the game, unlike the double-wicket or 6-a-side tourney, which never really took off. So it’s still a contest between 2 teams of 11 players each, with exactly the same rules between bat and ball. Another sensible decision has been to leave the ground sizes unchanged. There were fears that by reducing the boundary size the batsmen could’ve been given 6s on a platter but fortunately that’s not been the case.

The most striking aspect is, T-20 redefines cricket to cater to the perennial scarcity of time of the modern-day spectator and the thirst for constant thrills. It’s like a Man U-Arsenal shoot-out, where every kick and positioning/placing matters. Today’s spectator has thousands of things to worry about than watching a 5-day Test or an 8-hour ODI and wait for the result. Million-dollar deals are stuck in minutes, airplanes and defence establishments are knocked over in seconds, there aren’t that many takers for spending an entire day watching a cricket match !

Talking of slogfest hitting, admitted, the SL-Kenya scoreline left me numb (SL scored a mindboggling 260 odd in 20 overs!), but the Zimbabwe-Australia and India-Pakistan matches showed we can still have good old-fashioned contests between bat and ball in T-20. It’s not just about swinging your bat like a cold-blooded bludgeon with scant regard to the line and length of the delivery, and field placements. Doesn’t batting ultimately boil down to a batsman’s skill with timing the contact of a rectangular piece of wood with a round leather cherry? And contrary to expectations before the tournament that T-20 would involve slogging from ball 1, the successful teams have weathered the storm of early overs sensibly, preserving wickets for the final burst.

As far as cricketing skills are concerned, T-20 demands previously unseen and unprecedented levels of agility; Apart from that, it promotes variety and innovation from bowlers – you just cannot afford to bowl even 2-3 similar deliveries in an over! In fact it upstages ODI cricket also in certain respects. The toss – that eternal power which leaves captains the world over cold in their feet - has lost its potential match-turning muscle. The time period of the T-20 format ensures that no team faces disadvantages for nightlight conditions, morning dew etc. Agreed it promotes see-ball hit-ball across the line. But isn’t it a fact that India's Test team today relies more on players who're so-called "ODI specialists" (Yuvraj, Dhoni, Sehwag), and that we’ve been winning a lot more Tests after the ‘slam bang’ ODIs took over the cricketing world by storm? A good player will adjust to the match situation irrespective of the format. To blame scarcity of talent on the format of the game is like attributing the bad taste of milk to the shape of the cup.

A great contribution has been the erosion of inequities between the so-called superpowers and minnows. – just look at the confidence and clinical passion with which Bangladesh and Zimbabwe went about cleaning up opponents against whose sheer shock-and-awe aura until now they used to wither! Cut back to World Cup'07, when more than half the matches’ results could be predicted even before the flip of the coin. Here you just can’t write off anyone or predict anything whatsoever, irrespective of the situation and match. No wonder even the South Africa –Bangladesh and Sri Lanka-Zimbabwe matches had overflowing stadiums. If you just take a bio-break (or plain shut off the tv and give up on your team) for 2 balls, you might end up missing a dramatic turnaround and a completely different winner and outcome than you expected (as happened to me during the India-Pak encounter) :-D

In that sense, T20 can definitely be beneficial to the development of the game in cricket’s "developing countries". This "baseballised" version can create impact in huge markets like US and Canada. And undoubtedly the biggest gainer in all this has been the spectators. This tournament has taken over youngsters by storm; suddenly you find many more teenagers discussing the exploits of a Rohit Sharma, Brendan Taylor or a Jehan Mubarak on the 20-20 field than even Beckham’s kicks in soccer-crazy England.

T-20 has the potential of snatching market share from pubs and bars as late-evening hangouts for a coupe of hours, to relax after work. Add to it the electrifying atmosphere, carnival dances and music, pulsating action- and you have the ideal ingredients for a marketing showpiece. Reliance, Pepsi, Nike and the other sponsors have hit it big by betting on this new kid on the block.

I think its best to think of T-20 as another novel game, rather than try to compare it with the traditional formats and cry foul over its supposed defiling. And this debut T-20 tournament has proved a much better blockbuster event for sponsors, spectators and players alike, compared to the soporific World Cup'07. Even the Test-connoiseurs who sniggered at the concept of ODIs have bowed to the benefits it brought to the traditional format. In fact Tests have produced many more results and intense cricket after the advent of ODIs, compared to the snooze-fests of the 70s. So all ye purists out there, sit back and relax. People aren’t going to stop playing Tests; there’s definitely enough space for all three formats (Test, ODI and 20-20) to co-exist and mutually reinforce this wonderful game.
So who’s complaining? :-)