T20 has simplified the game of cricket for people’s understanding. A batsman is trying to hit the ball as hard as he can. A bowler is trying to outwit the batsman and making sure that he does not get hit for big strokes – singles are fine but not boundaries. Easy to follow and discuss making the format more popular than other formats. The way football is played with both teams playing with same intention of scoring more goals and in T20, the intention is to score more runs and nothing else matters.
There is still some scope of simplifying it further. To start with, I think LBW is irrelevant for a T20 game. Batsmen may block balls with their pads in a 5-day match as they need to preserve their wicket but in T20, every ball blocked is ball wasted and nobody wants to do it. LBW unnecessarily creates complexity with multiple variables going in one decision and hawk-eye embarrassing match officials every now and then.
The simpler a sport is the more popular it gets and Cricket has been burdened with so many rules and regulations impacting growth in its popularity. Time to make it simple and more fun!!!
You make a valid point about it simplifying the game, BUT as you put it with regard to bowlers just needing to limit big hits, it is removing the necessary skills from the game – ie the need to take wickets. Removing the LBW rule will make it even more difficult for bowlers to take wickets, if a batsman can just leave a straight ball. Even in Twenty20 there should be some skill of judgement of the stumps.
Twenty20 is fun, but doesn’t offer the sustained excitement of 5 day cricket and the ever-changing balance of bat and ball – cricket must not be just about the batsmen…
By: paulmthomas on May 20, 2008
at 3:52 pm
Hi Paul, Thanks for your comments. I agree that bowlers’ primary role in this format is not about taking wickets. But this format is not just about batsmen. Bowlers have a definite role to play in T20 but this role is not the same as a test match or even a 50-50 match.
In a football match, most of the goals are scored by forwards and scoreline shows goals scored and name of the scorers. It does not mean that defenders and goal keeper did not have any role to play. Their role is also very much relevant for a good game of football.
It is a mistake to expect this format to work in same way as a test match. This is a completely different type of cricket and should be judged solely on its own without any comparison with other formats. Bowlers role is more about restricting scoring than taking wickets because there are just 20 overs to bowl. In most cases, this is not sufficient time to get rid of a batting line up or reduce them to a state where run rate can be controlled by taking a lot of top order wickets. And it is better to focus on restricting
My point is that instead of looking at T20 through the lens of Five day cricket, we should just focus on looking at it in isolation and see how this can be made more popular and viewer-friendly.
By: everythingcricket on May 21, 2008
at 11:13 am