Which did you enjoy more: World Cup or Twenty20 Championship?

[Matt79]

T20...

 

[Agent TBY]

20/20.

Have to say I agree with SS fully on this one. Death to ODIs.

 

[Richard]

wc2007,....

T20...

to the latter.

 

[Swervy]

Agreed. The tournament wasn't too long, do we have a forum of people with the attention span of a flea or something?

How you can say the tournament was not too long is beyond me. Two months, 16% of a year, its just way way too long, attention span of a flea or an African Elephant, makes no difference, the tournament established to momentum and that is vital in a World Cup type tournament. I think some teams had something like 9 days between games, which is totally ridiculous.

These things should be lasting no more than a month ideally, 5 weeks maximum. Surely part of the idea is to establish the feeling of a festival or carnival of cricket, which means a short sharp blast of entertainment for the crowds, along with flair and excitment, building up to the final. The exceptionally long blue touchpaper of the World Cup firework fizzled out pretty much half way through that bleedin Super 8s phase.

 

[Richard]

I just don't understand how a lover of cricket can want <<<what is hopefully>>> a great cricket event to be over quickly.

 

[Swervy]

I just don't understand how a lover of cricket can want <<<what is hopefully>>> a great cricket event to be over quickly.

Too much of a good thing at best...at worst too much of an average thing.

I dont think I was alone in thinking 'bring on test cricket...quick'...which surely is not a positive for ODI cricket.

 

[Richard]

I think it is. That's the whole point of ODIs. They're designed as a break from Tests. If ODIs are enjoyable and make you think "won't it be good to have some Tests" they've done their job.

That WC wasn't enjoyable but that was because of the averageness of so, so many teams (Ireland and Bangladesh merely being the worst examples - and the fact that they were able to get to the Super Eights says a lot about some of the others). Had the competition been better, it would probably have been recognised as the greatest World Cup ever. You can, indeed, never have too much of a good thing.

 

[Majin]

Overall, I'd have to say I enjoyed the T20 cup more than the WC07. Sambit Bal's article up on Cricinfo pointed out a couple of the same things I felt about it.

I began the tournament with a mild sense of cynicism, which, I will now confess, was due partly to my reservations about Twenty20 as a form of cricket and partly to my personal experience of the last World Cup, which left me drained and dispirited. There was nothing to take from it barring Australia's overwhelming excellence and the occasional spark the Sri Lankans provided. Two good matches in a 47-day tournament, already turned sterile by overbearing officiousness, was going to test even the devout.

Of course it helped that the tournament didn't turn out be the graveyard for bowlers as had been anticipated. The first match felt ominous. Chris Gayle scored a sensational hundred, yet his team lost. But it turned out to be the only hundred of the tournament and there were only five scores of 200 and more, one of which was against Kenya. Bowlers had a far greater say than was feared, and that made the games absorbing.

I've watched enough of T20 cricket to know I don't mind it, but I always have and always will prefer Test cricket over anything else. The T20 always seemed to be emphasised too much on hectic batting, and while I enjoy a brutal innings every now and then, I've also always prefered watching good bowling than batting. So that's why the tournament was a pleasant surprise for me, there were plenty of really fantastic spells of bowling, the one that sticks out most for me is RP Singh's 4-13, which was awesome.

Another thing that made it so enjoyable was that it was generally much more closely contested than most other forms of the game, it didn't really ever feel like one team stood out so far from the rest of the pack. That every game had the potential to be competative made it much more intersting to just switch on a game regardless who was playing. Also, as someone else pointed out before, but I forget who, the fact that teams like Bangladesh are much more suited to T20 helped a lot too, because they don't have to worry so much about getting set and having a consistent scoring batting lineup, and they can make the most of their young and talented players to go out and smack the ball about a bit without it being so bad if they're only scoring 30 off 18.

Also I suppose India actually being something of a revelation and playing brilliant cricket had something to do with me liking it more It was good to watch for fans. I was skeptical of Dhoni being named Indian captain but he did a brilliant job on and off the field, his manner with the media is fantastic. He displayed some really good tactical awareness and always backed his players, and it paid off for him big time. Must have taken some massive guts to let Joginder Sharma bowl the last over of the final, but it did the job. The fielding was excellent for the most part, our batting was consistent and the bowling was also generally awesome, Pathan looks better than he has done in ages, RP Singh continued his run of great form and gives me more hope that he can develop into one of India's best bowlers, Harbhajan showed great character for the most part and Sreesanth delivered as well, even if he was still his usual erratic self.

So yeah, overall it was a great tournament for me.

 

[Richard]

Wow. Biggest Majin CC post ever?

 

[Majin]

By about 15 lines probably.

Though I feel like I should point out that I probably enjoyed the WC07 more than most. It had some great moments that I'll never forget, Ireland beating Pakistan on St. Paddy's day, Malinga's 4 in 4 and his astonishing new ball spell against NZ, Jayawardene's ODI batting masterclass in the same match and so on. Just for the reasons I mentioned above I'd take the T20, but both forms of the game to me are essentially just cricket-filler inbetween Test series. That sounds a bit more negative than it should, though. I still enjoy it, but I think because I prefer Test matches so much I can enjoy ODI and T20 cricket on about an even level without having to choose a preference between the two formats.

 

[Perm]

IMO, anybody that gave the Twenty20 World Champs a fair chance (ie, not Richard and Matt79 to name a couple) would have found that tournament more enjoyable than the ODI World Cup.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

WC. Watto played.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

IMO, anybody that gave the Twenty20 World Champs a fair chance (ie, not Richard and Matt79 to name a couple) would have found that tournament more enjoyable than the ODI World Cup.

Yip. Agree with that. I preferred the 20:20 even though Ross Taylor succeeded in looking like a chump throughout the tournament. The cricket played was more exciting, no bloody silly delaying tactics involved, no insane umpiring debacles, no murder come heart attacks and the players actually looked (for the most part) as if they were enjoying it. It looked enjoyable. The World Cup was bland, depressing and the quality of cricket was poor. There were more debacles than I care to remember and a lot of the crowds looked as if they'd turned up to a funeral.

I doubt anyone would have been tempted to take up cricket because of the World Cup; but I'm pretty sure cricket will have gained a few more friends as a result of the 20:20.

 

[sideshowtim]

How you can say the tournament was not too long is beyond me. Two months, 16% of a year, its just way way too long, attention span of a flea or an African Elephant, makes no difference, the tournament established to momentum and that is vital in a World Cup type tournament. I think some teams had something like 9 days between games, which is totally ridiculous.

These things should be lasting no more than a month ideally, 5 weeks maximum. Surely part of the idea is to establish the feeling of a festival or carnival of cricket, which means a short sharp blast of entertainment for the crowds, along with flair and excitment, building up to the final. The exceptionally long blue touchpaper of the World Cup firework fizzled out pretty much half way through that bleedin Super 8s phase.

The carnival atmosphere you speak of would've been good, however crowds were generally poor, as was the weather at times. Having the tournament spread over multiple islands will generally do that I feel. Hard to build up a single kind of 'atmosphere' as opposed to it being held in a single country.

I don't think the lack of atmosphere had anything to do with the length, as it was never there in the first place.

 

[Perm]

I don't think the lack of atmosphere had anything to do with the length, as it was never there in the first place.

If the atmosphere was better I doubt many people would've complained about the length of the tournament.

 

[vic_orthdox]

The issue with the World Cup was how there was to be only one match per day for TV purposes. That stretched out the tournament far too long.

 

[Matt79]

IMO, anybody that gave the Twenty20 World Champs a fair chance (ie, not Richard and Matt79 to name a couple) would have found that tournament more enjoyable than the ODI World Cup.

Says more about how poorly organised the WC was than Twenty20 though...

 

[NUFAN]

Yeah I voted World Cup because it meant more to me.

Obviously the Twenty20 format was more exciting and it would have been way more fun being at the grounds, but what percentage of players would rather win the Twenty20 Championships over the ODI World Cup.. That's my answer.

 

[Perm]

Says more about how poorly organised the WC was than Twenty20 though...

Not necessarily. Obviously if the World Cup was organised in a better way it would have been more enjoyable than it was, but more enjoyable than the Twenty20 World Champs? No IMO, as the standard of cricket played at the World Cup was often appalling, as was the contest in most games.

 

[Johnners]

WC2007, I didn't watch any of the Twenty20 WC