Cricket...confused formats

The Aussie cricket team recently lost the Ashes and went on the win the Champions Trophy, and the latter hardly registered a blip in Australia. Warnie is right when he says that 50 over cricket is dead. With the advent of Twenty20 the one-day game is now a complete snore. The sooner the ICC moves on the better. But T20 isn't that much of a game really. It suffers from a systemic issue in that if one team gets a very good score on the board its really difficult to chase. If the chase team gets in trouble its pretty much over. So the 'spectacle' is lost, and at that point the raison detre of T20 isnt' being fulfilled (and the crowd needs to focus on the boundary dancers to feel like they are getting their money's worth!)

As a bloke who grew up in the heyday of Lillee/Marsh/Chappell/Thomson (and Lenny Pascoe of course), I'm much more a fan of the 5 day game. Unique in its tardiness to complete, Test Cricket isn't a game of fast gratification. What I love about it most is its role in our culture: that for the 5 days when a test is on, people from all walks of life are bonded together through the need to go about our daily lives and still stay abreast of the progress of the game. It gives us something more interesting than "gee, its hot outside isn't it?!" as the ice-breaker when we get in the lift or the taxi. Besides that, in a world where everything seems to be instantaneous and short-lived, there is something incredibly gratifying in watching a batsman toil all day to produce 100 test runs.

The cricketers themselves love the 5-day game far more than the other forms. A T20 specialist will never be a 'real Aussie cricketer' because he hasn't worn the baggy green. It would be like having a form of baseball with one innings each (actually on a ratio basis it would only be 0.31 of an innings each) and the players being considered 'real major league ball players'. Ummm... nup. Unfortunately though, Test Cricket seems to be waning in popularity. Other than us playing the Poms or the Proteas (at home) there isn't a huge amount of interest in the game like there used to be (especially when the Windies were such a powerhouse in the 80's). Luckily, the Poms won the recent Ashes. The entire next series, back here in Oz, will be a sell out.

So, none of the three formats seem, in my view, to be close to perfect. Test Cricket will always stay, and so it should (despite a continual decline in public interest, especially if the popularity of cricket in England is anything to go by), but the other two formats, without a long heritage and already used to being 'tinkered with' need to be reviewed and somehow blended. I don't know how but there have been some suggestions like: (a) two inning's each of 20 overs, with the entire lineup batting twice; or (b) varying the length to say 30, 35 or 40 over innings. Personally, I'd like to see both forms merged into one 35-over crunch fest, with both teams allowed to nominate 2 already-out batsmen to return to the crease if all wickets fall. This would allow lower-order hitters to take even more risks, knowing that they have 2 top order batters to return. Of course, it would mean weaker batters would throw their wickets toward the end, but so what, if they are trying to hit boundaries. Frankly, it wasn't that fun watching Glenn McGrath try to get bat on ball at the end of an innings.

Ultimately, I think that international players can reasonably only handle the demands of 2 formats. T20 is presently seen as a 'bit of fun' and a major cash earner for those contracted to the IPL, but the ICC needs to be very concerned with the impacts it is having on 50-over cricket. They should be, if a fan like me is anything to go by.