Stop bashing Twenty20

[Matt79]

Afridi tbh...

 

[honestbharani]

Twenty20 is great. I have a question for all those people who are bashing twenty20 here: how many of you actually watch a test match without missing many overs? I bet none or very few of you yet you all have probably watched all the Twenty20's or at least the matches involving your teams. I personally don't hate test cricket, I like all the three formats equally (because I'm having a hard time deciding which one I like more ), but I've had situations where I stopped watching a test match for a session or the whole day because the batsmen were scoring too slowly or because there was no possibility of a result ( flat pitch, rain, etc so pointless to watch). So imagine someone completely new to the game.

But I agree with those who are saying fans, cricket players etc if they're exposed to Twenty20 more, they will start to pay more attention towards it than test cricket, but that's because test matches are usually boring the first 3 days, you're unsure of a result, pitches are flat, and you hear commentators saying how the pitch will take turn on day 4 or 5 or there will be more uneven bounce and it gets more flatter . So I think if any one of these things can be improved, people will follow test cricket with more interest, maybe instead of 5 days, make it 4 days ( 90 overs a day) but with pitches that offer a lot of assistance to the bowlers so you're guaranteed a result, this would mean batsmen more likely to get out because they would want to score quickly while they're there and not just block every ball they face. Good bowling will also get its rewards which isn't happening currently.

So do you think test matches should be reduced to 4 days with more helpful pitches to attract more fans?

we can just keep the 5 days and make sure we get more pitches which do something at the start and also will turn at the end, which means it will help batters in between. Ideal kind of wicket that one, so its very hard to produce...


Practically, I would like pitches with pace and bounce... Too much movement (spin or swing or seam) makes batting a bit of a lottery, but with pace and bounce, the good bowlers will do well (spinners and quickies) and so will the good batsmen as they will enjoy being able to play their shots because the bounce and pace is true....

Twenty20.. I do like it, I don't think it is as bad as some make it out to be but I think we should play too many of those and also make sure we get wickets which do something for the bowlers.. That is when Twenty20 gets most exciting, IMHO...

 

[archie mac]

I am proud to say I have only watched one game of the 20/20 WC, and only then because I was asked to write a match report

And it is Test cricket with a capital 'T'

Slogging, no skill, I think I would almost rather watch baseball


Can we have no more 20/20 threads, please

 

[andyc]

Voted 'yes' because it seemed like the most irrelevant response.

 

[SJS]

Practically, I would like pitches with pace and bounce... Too much movement (spin or swing or seam) makes batting a bit of a lottery,
.

No HB its not a lottery you can play it if you know how. Of course the bowler will get you with a ball that defesats you but thats what they are their for too.

Secondly, all movement is NOT due to the wicket. Bowlers like Imran Khan did not need wickets with lateral movement to make the ball talk. Trust me he moved it so much and so late in the air, it looked a lottery to guess where the ball would be when the bat came down to meet it.

There were many others in those times who too moved it in the air a lot, at all levels, but you have to add the movement to pace and to the 'lateness' of the movement to make the batsman's life more difficult.

The fact that those bowlers could do it and bowlers today need to be 'naturally gifted' to get it and not lose it (due to natural causes) shows it wasnt a fluke. Lateral movement is learnt as is the art to be able to play.

Mohinder Amarnath and Gavaskar amongst the Indian batsmen countered it far better than other Indians - this is not because they were lucky at some lottery.

Mohinder played inswing better than Gavaskar who was better at playing outswing - these are not random factors due to a statistical coincidence (or lottery). These are crafts and skills that have to be mastered. Some master it more than others and that is what differentiates the masters from the others.

Similarly playing on devastating stickies with abominable movement and yet be able to survive when others couldn't as Hobbs did on so many occasions is not because he was luckier than others (for some 40 years of first class cricket) but because in those days such wickets were common and he was a master of how to play on those wickets.

Bradman brought up on different wickets did not have to learn to master the craft and completely modelled his batting on different lines. I have no doubt that if he was an Englishman he would have mastered the stickies too since he would have learnt how to do it from the early stage.

No. Its not a lottery. Of course their is the really unplayable delivery which you may or maynot survive. Warne's 'ball of the century' may have missed Gatting's stumps by a whisker. That would have been lottery but Sachin and Laxman's knowing how to play Warne better than Gatting is not lottery - it is a skill.

 

[SJS]

I am proud to say I have only watched one game of the 20/20 WC, and only then because I was asked to write a match report

And it is Test cricket with a capital 'T'

Slogging, no skill, I think I would almost rather watch baseball


Can we have no more 20/20 threads, please

I sit on my imac with my television behind me to the left. When a wicket falls or their is general noise from the ground. I turn around to watch the replay.

When India are batting, I try to sit facing the TV and watch most of it for luck. Also if India is bowling second, I watch the last three or four overs of the other team's batting or the end of the match.

My wife feels I just switch on the TV because I am used to the noise or because I want to keep her out of the room

When its a test match between India and any other side (barring minnows) I watch every single minute that I can physically. Same for almost all Australia's matches.

 

[honestbharani]

No HB its not a lottery you can play it if you know how. Of course the bowler will get you with a ball that defesats you but thats what they are their for too.

Secondly, all movement is NOT due to the wicket. Bowlers like Imran Khan did not need wickets with lateral movement to make the ball talk. Trust me he moved it so much and so late in the air, it looked a lottery to guess where the ball would be when the bat came down to meet it.

There were many others in those times who too moved it in the air a lot, at all levels, but you have to add the movement to pace and to the 'lateness' of the movement to make the batsman's life more difficult.

The fact that those bowlers could do it and bowlers today need to be 'naturally gifted' to get it and not lose it (due to natural causes) shows it wasnt a fluke. Lateral movement is learnt as is the art to be able to play.

Mohinder Amarnath and Gavaskar amongst the Indian batsmen countered it far better than other Indians - this is not because they were lucky at some lottery.

Mohinder played inswing better than Gavaskar who was better at playing outswing - these are not random factors due to a statistical coincidence (or lottery). These are crafts and skills that have to be mastered. Some master it more than others and that is what differentiates the masters from the others.

Similarly playing on devastating stickies with abominable movement and yet be able to survive when others couldn't as Hobbs did on so many occasions is not because he was luckier than others (for some 40 years of first class cricket) but because in those days such wickets were common and he was a master of how to play on those wickets.

Bradman brought up on different wickets did not have to learn to master the craft and completely modelled his batting on different lines. I have no doubt that if he was an Englishman he would have mastered the stickies too since he would have learnt how to do it from the early stage.

No. Its not a lottery. Of course their is the really unplayable delivery which you may or maynot survive. Warne's 'ball of the century' may have missed Gatting's stumps by a whisker. That would have been lottery but Sachin and Laxman's knowing how to play Warne better than Gatting is not lottery - it is a skill.

Well, what I actually meant was that, if the pitch by itself offers too much movement (in terms of spin or swing), it makes batting very difficult. I never meant to say that the ones who have played such bowling well did it by luck. What I meant by " a bit of a lottery" is that as well as you may be playing, a snorter can come in at any time and get you out. If you had watched the last test between India and Windies at Jamaica (I think), Lara was playing as well as anyone had done in that test match on THAT pitch... It had uneven bounce, pace and everything that makes batting difficult. It turned a mile on day 1 itself... Lara was looking like he was building up to another little gem and then all of a sudden, Sreesanth (who had looked the worst bowler in the Indian side till then) comes up with a ball that just takes off from a good length. You really can't do much at that stage... that is what I meant and the same can happen if there is too much movement too, off the wicket, esp. if it is not consistent...


The bowlers you mentioned, the likes of Imran Khan and Warne all had the natural ability to move the ball (or spin it) a lot on their own without depending too much on the wicket. I am not talking about those guys. I am talking about wickets where a Debasish Mohanty or an Irfan Pathan suddenly becomes a match winner.... I am not exactly fond of those wickets.


Of course, for balance's sakes, I would like to see the odd pitch loaded in favor of the bowlers (seamers or spinners doesn't matter) and the odd pitch loaded in favor of the batsmen as it helps us to see who is good when things get difficult and who isn't. But too many of those wickets are not what cricket needs. Mainly, we just need a majority of wickets that aren't too much loaded in favor of either the batters or the bowlers. That was my point. I never meant that playing the moving ball well was a result of luck or anything of the sort and if my post seemed to have implied it in any way, I apologize.

 

[SJS]

I apologize.

No you dont have to.

But one is amazed at how much criticism a wicket gets for being bowler friendly. Of course wickets shouldnt be MADE to be unplayable. The bowler must have the skill to bowl those deliveries. A wicket must provide help to bowlers as well as encourage strokeplay. A lottery type of wicket (as prepared for the NZL tour by India just before the 2003 World Cup is not good too.

But I am talking of bowlers skills irrespective of the wicket. Those with better skills will surely make better use of helpful wickets. Hence India's spin trio were really skillful on all wickets but on slightly helpful one's they would sorely test the batsman's skills. Same for bowlers like Imran and Hadlee or Marshall.

And, conversely, on dead tracks, even these marvellous spinners and purveyors of speed and swing could be played with 'relative' ease.

Its the missing skills of these masters that is to be morned and it is to ensure that conditions exist in the game for these skills to ramain. That is possible only if it is worthwhile for a professional cricketer (or one aspiring to be one) to invest time into acquiring them. Those conditions must not go away nor rules changed to make these skills redundant.

Well not redundant but not worth the sweat and grime to be invested in acquiring them.

 

[Goughy]

Havent read the full thread but completely agree with the Thread title.

Its getting very tiresome with the same faces posting roughly the same sort of anti-20/20 sentiment day after day.

Alright, we get it. Certain of you dont like it. But you know what, some of us do.

We all know that people keep going on about how they dont like the format but its getting more 'boring' to read that over and over again than how 'boring' those posters find 20/20 itself.

For me Tests are King and always will be. They are the only cricket that really matters. 20/20 is entertainment and no threat to Tests but it also does require a definate skills set.

 

[BhupinderSingh]

Yes,stop bashing Twenty20 and make efforts to get it banned once forever.

 

[The Sean]

Havent read the full thread but completely agree with the Thread title.

Its getting very tiresome with the same faces posting roughly the same sort of anti-20/20 sentiment day after day.

Alright, we get it. Certain of you dont like it. But you know what, some of us do.

We all know that people keep going on about how they dont like the format but its getting more 'boring' to read that over and over again than how 'boring' those posters find 20/20 itself.

For me Tests are King and always will be. They are the only cricket that really matters. 20/20 is entertainment and no threat to Tests but it also does require a definate skills set.

I've deliberately not posted in this thread for exactly that reason - I've already made my thoughts clear in one or more of the many other threads (and my sig).

But what I will say is this - I think the poll question should in fact be two questions...

Should Tests be reduced to 4 days? Absolutely not.

Should pitches be prepared to be more helpful to bowlers, to enable at least an even chance of better rewards for good bowling? Absolutely.

 

[Salixiscool]

While I'm not a huge fan of 20/20 I think it should stay. Its a good fun match once in a while. And at least the matches aren't dominated by Australia.

 

[Richard]

20/20 is entertainment and no threat to Tests but it also does require a definate skills set.

Personally I think that's becoming questionable. There's certainly no doubt that a potential threat to ODIs lies within, and while some may be delighted at this, others emphatically aren't.

Hence, Twenty20 will continue to be discussed, and it won't just be the same thing over and over.

 

[Richard]

well test cricket is the real cricket... it is the test of batsmans' and bowlers' potentials, talents, skills and abilities.. think of it this way in four overs no bowler can get thier line and lenght and rhtem.. same with bating... no batsman would play thier natural game in twenty game... they would play for run rate more than thier natural game... there are certain batsmans that we wana see them play thier natural game... play with timing... be selective with thier shots.. thier style of bating is more interesting to watch then watching aggrassive batsmans hiting fours and sixes in every deliver... i think for the sake of that teste cricket should stay the way it is..

Who are you and what have you done with haroon?

My thoughts precisely.

 

[Richard]

I'm just wondering whether the cluster that was the ODI World Cup now was entirely the result of incompetence or whether the ICC wants to move to T20 as the standard, so did their best to kill off the joy of the ODI WC before organising what must be acknowledged as a well run, nicely atmosphered tournament to-date in SA.

Think it's more the SAfricans who've done the organising - we had Stephen Elworthy on TMS a few weeks back talking about how he'd done it, and it does seem that they had a virtual free-hand - he was saying how they've mirrored as best they can their domestic Twenty20 competition. It's rare to see a global tournament (regardless of whether organised by I$C$C or the home board - remember the terrible 1999 WC and 2004 CT in England?) laid-on so well.

I mean, ticket prices at some of the first few games were something like £2. That's insane. They were more concerned about getting full-houses than about squeezing that little bit extra out of gate receipts (the vast majority of income comes from TV contracts anyway).

Think the World Cup, I've said a few times, was actually decently planned, and had there been better teams (starting with India and Pakistan knocking-out Bangladesh and Ireland as they should have) I think WC2007 could still have been a fine tournament. The only great shame was the high ticket-prices.

 

[Richard]

I'm not saying completely remove test cricket. What I mean is with time people will be less inclined towards test cricket because of Twenty20, so something must be done to make it more attractive. Five days is too long with batsmen blocking and letting go a lot of deliveries which makes it frustrating to watch sometimes. And on top of that you're not even sure of a result. For people who have watched test cricket before, it's not a problem but for newcomers esp now with Twenty20, they'll find it hard to develop interest in test cricket.

That's every bit as stereotypical nonsense as the common dismissals of ODIs and why Twenty20 is better are.

There has always been an audience for Test-cricket. Even now, when ODIs have been the dominant force for at least 2 decades, Tests are still the favoured game-form by many.

If anything Test cricket is currently in danger because scoring is too quick and too high - this risks alienating the people who really, genuinely cherish it, and it's foolish to think that it could ever draw in the flybynight, fickle types that are oft heralded as the "new audience" for the game because they flock to Twenty20s. Most of these types have something close to zero chance of developing an interest in real cricket.

And believe me it's human nature to keep things the way they are

I wonder why that is now? Could it possibly be because some things are best left unchanged?

but if some of those changes I've mentioned are implemented, it will be for the betterment of the game.

No, it won't. Test-cricket has been 5-day for the best part of half a century. To change it now for no good reason would be pure madness.

 

[slugger]

I read most of it, but am shortly heading to bed, so not exhaustively.

No, I don't think Tests should be reduced - if anything, the opposite (where play is lost).

Funny he can watch every ball of every over 5 days straight but struggled to read two paragraphs in their entirety

 

[Richard]

It's not a case of struggling, it's a case of CBAism.

 

[slugger]

I remember reading something somewhere that steve waugh suggested test match should be reduced to 4 days and that the touring side chosers to bat or ball.. a coin toss is only used at a neutral ground?..

 

[Prince EWS]

I remember reading something somewhere that steve waugh suggested test match should be reduced to 4 days and that the touring side chosers to bat or ball.. a coin toss is only used at a neutral ground?..

Wasn't that immediately after losing to India in India though? No surprises there...