Extreme Cricket?

Ashes heroics apart, cricket is widely regarded as our most traditional and conservative of major sports. The gentle thwack of leather on willow; the light ripples of applause from the picket fenced boundary’s edge; onlookers waiting patiently in their deckchairs for the tea break and a selection of crustless sandwiches. The Natural History Museum has even suggested humorously that the boredom of cricket may account for the extinction of the dinosaurs.

But, through a growing threat of its own extinction as a sport, cricket’s governing bodies are now promoting a new and dynamic form of the game to an altogether younger and less patient audience. Twenty20 cricket is being marketed as “extreme cricket” or even “cricket’s version of rock ‘n roll”. The twenty overs per side “slog fest” has been played in England for some two years already but is now captivating audiences and authorities the world over.

The recipe is simple: short, bite sized matches and early evening start times allow fans to attend after work or school. Under floodlights players wear colourful strips, or pyjamas, and walk out to bat to the tune of their favourite song. Lest anyone drift off in the crowd during a dull moment (of which I am assured there are few), mascots and cheerleaders are employed to drum up enthusiasm.

Yet with totals often exceeding two hundred runs off the allotted twenty overs, such razzmatazz is rendered unnecessary. Traditionalists fear the Americanisation of so English a sport and hope that the talents of a healthy new crop of hard-hitting batsmen will not be exploited by the authorities to the long-term detriment of the game. However, the brutal approach of stars like our own Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff and Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi, though perfectly suited to the twenty over format, does not seem to be conditioned by match duration. Flintoff’s Ashes exploits and Afridi’s recent demolition of India at Test level would appear to prove quite the opposite: that Twenty20 cricket has succeeded in adding spice to the Test Match arena.

Such is the success and, one suspects, financial potential of this short form of the game that the ICC are rumoured to be planning the first Twenty20 World Cup, to take place in England as soon as 2007. In addition, the organizing committee of the Commonwealth Games are provisionally interested in including Twenty20 in the line-up for the 2010 games in Delhi. While most cricketing nations support the advancement of Twenty20, India currently refuse to recognise it as a serious and worthwhile form of the game.

Regardless of the game’s future at international level, the domestic Twenty20 Cup, played out between the English counties, is now an established part of the summer fixture list. Tickets for Finals Day, during which both semi-finals and the final will be played, have just gone on sale at £35 for adults and £15 for under 16s. Trent Bridge will host the event in June and it promises to be a carnival of cricket.