The all-singing, all-dancing ICC World Twenty20 has arrived. It’s time we embraced cricket’s versatility and celebrated what the modern game is capable of, says Phil Walker.
Like most good things in life, the English created Twenty20 cricket. Fed it when no one else wanted to know, nurtured it, and then sent it out into the world.
Now the great conqueror has returned.
And whilst there is irresistible irony to an English summer that dares combine the aged institution of an Ashes contest with a Twenty20 carnival, it’s also potentially rather wonderful.
The interplay between these flagship events will go some way towards mapping out how English cricket will take shape in the near future. A humdinger Ashes will grip the country like nothing else cricket can offer. Equally, a blistering T20 fortnight to precede it will establish Twenty20 in the hearts and minds of serious English cricket fans for ever. With a finals day at Lord’s also featuring the women’s showpiece, this could be the year that cricket’s cocky iconoclast finally joins the establishment.
If this festival can combine the glitz and chutzpah of the IPL with the unique gravitas and meaning that flows when cricketers represent their country, we’ll be on to a winner
After all, the cricket world is obsessed with the format. Twenty20’s impact is now well known. The ICC and its treasured international schedule must now dance to the Indian Premier League’s tune, or prepare itself for an exodus of players moving away from their countries as priorities change to reflect an altered landscape.
Because in just two years, the IPL, a privately financed, stinking-rich tournament first dreamt up to capitalise on India’s victory in the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 in 2007, has obliterated that thin outer layer which once shielded international cricket from change.
So it’s another irony that the ICC’s most successfully received tournament of recent years should indirectly lead to this tipping point; in this month’s All Out Cricket magazine, the Professional Cricketers Association (PCA) boss Sean Morris writes about the decisions faced by cricketers who “can now earn life-changing sums of money while not playing for their country”.
In many ways then, the ICC World Twenty20 2009, English-style, can be a unifying event for a fractured game.
If this festival can combine the glitz and chutzpah of the IPL with the unique gravitas and meaning that flows when cricketers represent their country, we’ll be on to a winner. It’s a chance that the game could do with taking.
For our part, let us all celebrate the arrival on these shores of the world’s greatest cricketers. Class is unmistakable whether it’s a Test match or a street game of Tapeball. Class cricketers do incredible things in any form of the game; Twenty20 cricket may condense the skills of these players, but it never squeezes the life from them.
Who can’t get excited about watching young bucks like England’s Ravi Bopara and the Indian Rohit Sharma peel off a textbook cover drive, only to unleash a pick-up shovel over midwicket to the very next delivery pitched in the same spot? Who isn’t intrigued by how Australia’s openers will fare in the post-Hayden/Gilchrist era? This is not just some brutish slogathon predicated on muscle. This is cricket, folks. Average players will get found out. Class will prevail.
And who isn’t buzzing to see Sri Lanka’s mystery spinner Ajantha Mendis in action for the first time, or praying that Adil Rashid gets thrown the ball in a big game? Who isn’t touched to see Sri Lanka’s cricketers in good health ready to play some cricket after the horrors of recent months? Who isn’t delighted to welcome Pakistan back into the fold?
It’s time we embraced cricket’s versatility. For the next two weeks, as we build towards the main event of an Ashes shootout, let’s postpone the old English concerns about Test cricket’s primacy and celebrate what we have in front of us.
This summer is an exquisite opportunity to tie the young to the old: to make them one. The challenge starts on Friday, when England take on the mighty Dutch at Lord’s in a game that will last three hours. A little over a month later, on the same ground, Australia will be the opponents in a five-dayer.
This is cricket, 2009 style. Enjoy…
One Comment
Some interesting points raised but I can’t help but think Twenty20 cricket will ultimately be remembered in rather much the same way as Gordon Brown’s ecomomic blueprint for Great Britain… It entered our consciousness upon a bristling wave of optimism (complete with awful music and staged dancing), it offered hope, aspiration and accessibility. It promised exciting times, a never ending flow of glamour and riches and made a lot of people very rich in a very short space of time. However, like Brown’s economy, it was also built on paper-thin foundations. The gluttonous gorged and the feast disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. Neil Kinnock was a test-match loving man but you couldn’t bring yourselves to vote for him, shame on you.