4 Comments

Thanks for an excellent article. Spent most of my ICC career officiating teams that you have mentioned and am always fascinated by the progress being made in so many associate countries. Players from Nepal to Jersey and Rwanda all have the same desire - to be playing at the highest level. Let’s give them more support. Well done.

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I really don't like T20 cricket, for the longest time I wondered what drove this... Then this article helped me figure it out.. What I hate is that the T20 format is a bit like when transwomen win in women events, it is all sorts of wrong about it....

Let me explain, we know there is a lot of abuse of rules in sports when it comes to who is who, gender wise, and some bloke 400 or worse in his male sport, then changes gender and wins...That is just all sorts of wrong...

The top tier nations England, South Africa, Australia, India, West Indies, Pakistan, New Zealand all play 3 forms of cricket, Tests, ODI, T20... As they can afford to, well supported etc...

T20 is a cheaper version of cricket, it requires less time to play, it allows for a reasonable access to broadcast schedules.. You need all day to play an ODI, from 10am, to well past 4pm, or you need lights to play if starting at 2pm...

However if you schedule a T20 to start at say 10am, it should be over by 1pm, you could play a 2nd game, 2pm to 5pm...without needing lights or much ground prep, and a tournament could take place all done in a week, game 1 Monday, Final Sunday, on the plane/bus Sunday...

T20 is a sport that allows tiny teams the chance to play and win games, to play 50 overs is well beyond them, 50 overs is excessive, way too much for any lower level team to really understand...

Not making much sense, T20 is a perfect length of game that allows for teams to grow, I don't think the big tier 1 teams benefit much from T20, but Uganda, etc, they could in a week, play a lot of games, against other nations and benefit from on field time.. T20 being so short, you could if wll managed, and timed correctly you could almost turn T20 into a sort of tennis style...

Game 1: 9am to 12pm

Game 2: 1pm to 5pm

Game 3: 7pm to 10pm under lights...

The idea is that we have stadiums that are not used for 50 weeks of the year, and we could for very little investment host 6 or 8 teams for 2 or 4 weeks, twice a year to play "friendlies" or for points, best of 3 "sets" Game 3 if tied 1-1 at 5pm.... Not sure...

T20 is the right length for a certain tier of team, the T20 world cup should not include the Tier 1 teams, as they have such an unfair advantage... Something that cannot be "lawed" away...Uganda v South Africa, it would have to be an Under 16 SA side or something, to make it any sort of level...

After a recent rugby world cup, Japan had beaten South Africa, so let's involve Japan in a tournament, and well it did not go so well for the team in the east, all sorts of wrong, even imports from SA, NZ, etc helped not one bit... We have seen this tried and tried and tried and the same results.. Cote 'D Voire is never going to beat SA or NZ in a rugby world cup final, but CDV might win a world cup of Tier 2 and 3 nations ONLY....

That is what the T20 should be about...

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