Blog: Ace

Will Twenty Twenty mean the end of Test Cricket

I have been listening to some pompous twit on the radio called Giles - it would be wouldn't it - talk about how the English Contract cricket players will not be allowed or certainly discouraged to join the new Indian Premier League with huge sponsors and crowds and mega bucks for the players.

Now I ask you if you were an international sportsman with a shelf life of say 5 years whether they wanted to play for 6 weeks a year for 400,000 $ for 3 years and possibly sacrifice your international place - what are you going to do. Exactly - you are going to sign up.

The excitement of playing in front of millions of cricket devotees for a couple of hours is going to overshadow the slog of a five day Test.

I love 20/20. Its an exciting dynamic form of cricket that takes about 3 hours max. You see loads of shots and runs and wickets and there's music and the crowds are huge. Its just great fun and a real spectacle. Test cricket can be dramatic - chess on grass and all that - but it is or will be for the purist. It won't be Geoffrey Boycott's cup of tea but so what - it will be a game that will draw in large sections of the population from all round the world.
It will also attract better athletes to the game - guys who can hit hard and bowl fast.
Cricket will have to move with the changing times. The ECB in particualr sold its soul to Sky and thereby preventing the majority of people from seeing Test cricket on the screens.
They should not be surprised if people turn away from the traditional version to the crash bang wallop of 20/20,
And I for one will be relish the opportunity of watching it. Test cricket will soon be dead - long live the shorter version

by Ace on 13:19 on 28th March 2008