Twenty20 Cricket Is Rubbish

This week saw the English county season descend into antics of Twenty20 cricket.

Introduced by the ECB to the domestic calendar five years ago, Twenty20 cricket has become the most widely watched and most lucrative form of the game.

The IPL has made the worlds biggest cricket stars richer than they could ever have hoped they would be half a decade ago, and the money of Mr Stanford is set to make millionaires out of either the English or the West Indian Twenty20 sides.

The stadiums are invariably full, or close to being full, when a Twenty20 game is being played.

There is talk of it becoming the dominant form of cricket. Talk of the death of Test cricket.

I decided I'd best see what all the fuss is about with trips to Lord's, the home of cricket, and the Oval last week. On Thursday I watched Middlesex take on Essex, believing if anywhere was likely to provide me with a good atmosphere, it was Lord's.

As one of the first into the stadium, I watched the seats filled by men in suits and large groups of school children. The atmosphere built.

The two teams took to the field—I was the only one that offered the teams and the umpires the customary round of applause.

Tim Murtagh bowled the first delivery of the day to Mark Pettini who took a single. There was no applause for a good run. There was no indication anyone had seen the delivery at all. Looking around I noticed everyone was too busy drinking and prattling away to their work buddies to actually watch the cricket.

It felt like I was in a pub rather than the home of cricket.

A few overs in, a couple of the men in suits turned their attention to the actual game. I overhead them making such inexplicably loud comments as:

"Who are batting?" "Middlesex." - Essex were batting.

"There are eight balls in an over." - There are six.

"So is this Twenty20 a league or a cup?" "A league." - It's a cup.

"Cam orrrrrn yow Middlesex." (That was the chap who thought Essex were Middlesex by the way).

This fleeting interest in the actual cricket was always rapidly replaced by the need to get up, again and again and again, to get some more booze in.

When the game ended I heard a number of people asking things such as "where next? The pub?" No one was talking of the cricket. Nobody cared about the result. No one knew what had happened. I doubt that too many of them could recall who they had been supposedly watching.

It felt like being at a gig where nobody cared much for the headline act.

The game itself I found to be insipid. It was not a contest as Middlesex cruised to victory, and it wasn't attractive to watch. It was just old men flailing wildly at a ball. I was at a complete loss to understand the attraction of it. It looked even worse in person than on the television.

The highlight of the match was Grant Flower playing, without a doubt, the most pathetic shot I have ever seen. Attempting to take a page from Kevin Pietersen's book, he lined himself up for a reverse sweep, but missed the ball horrifically and was dismissed lbw for 12.

I was happy to leave.

Later that night I wondered if the crowd were so disinterested because this was a one-off boring game perhaps.

Well, the following day, at the Oval, my team, Kent, took on Surrey. It was a much closer match, but the crowd found mass cup stacking to be more entertaining than watching the actual game.

Most cricket fans would agree that Test cricket is far more of a spectacle; it is much deeper and offers greater scope for a great innings, a great game and a great series.

It takes greater skill to produce a top class innings in Test cricket. A top class innings in Twenty20 is predicated largely on luck.

So if Test cricket dies, who wins?

Certainly not cricket fans. The winners are the boards, the players and non-cricket fans. It makes me very sad to think that in the near future the game will be played for money and not for love of the game, and that it will be attended by people who don't give a damn about cricket.

Maybe I'm a stick in the mud, but I completely agree with West Indian legend Michael Holding that Twenty20 "cricket" is rubbish.