Cricketers' Views on Twenty20

[SJS]

NEW GAME OLD SKILLS
Will Luke
Cricinfo​

Excerpts :

Look at Ramprakash build an innings in 50 overs as opposed to 20 and there are very few differences, other than his urgency at the crease. There is no substitute for class, which probably comes as a relief to the sceptics who muttered and moaned when Twenty20 first appeared that the format diluted cricket's essentials. Ramprakash's cricket - the cover drive; standing tall to cut past point; smiting down the ground - remains, essentially, the same. The myth that the new format requires inventive, crazy batsmanship is just that. Aggressive cricket need not be suicidal or ugly.​

Though England are beginning to show a one-day renaissance, their troubles (and in particular those of Michael Vaughan) in the past decade were perplexing. How can a batsman of Vaughan's talent in Tests appear so out of his depth in the shorter format? Vaughan averages 27.15 and, in 86 matches, is yet to reach three figures, which contradicts the Australian mantra that any Test cricketer should, by virtue of his ability, be more than capable of succeeding in one-dayers. Stuart Law, a Pom by marriage but an Australian at heart, is one such believer.

"Not a truer word has been spoken," he says. "I remember talking to a guy in the club I played in when I was growing up, an ex-senior player, who said to me: 'One-day cricket is just an extension of two-day and four-day cricket, but it's an opportunity to express their talent and expand on what they normally do.' And it's so right. There's no secret formula; you can't wake up one morning and say, 'Right, time to put on my Twenty20 head.' It's cricket. If you can adapt quicker, sum up the conditions of the pitch as quickly as you can, then you can expand into what looks to be really aggressive cricket.

"There's no real secret formula. In Twenty20 cricket you haven't got the time to play yourself in like you have in 50-over cricket. You've basically got to get out there and do it from ball one. I wouldn't say you change the way you play your game. It's about getting to that point where you think you can accelerate the run-rate as quickly as you possibly can."

But let's face it. With lifeless pitches, an international schedule to make grown men weep and the continued shortening of boundaries, cricket is a batsman's game. The poor, puce-faced bowler doesn't have a hope in Twenty20s.

"Every bowler hates Twenty20 cricket," Law says, with a hint of glee in his voice. "If a bowler says Twenty20's great, it's fantastic, 'I love it', they're kidding themselves ... as they watch their best deliveries sail over the fence at a regular interval. It's not much for any of them.​

 

[SJS]

A matter of formats​

Ian Chappell​

Excerpts :

'll bet the administrators wish they possessed a reliable crystal ball that would provide a glimpse of cricket's future. Especially when it comes to Twenty20, the shortest but suddenly most desirable form of the game.

The fans can't get enough of Twenty20, the players are starting to embrace it, and private promoters are spending millions in the hope of cashing in on the popularity of the sport's latest entertainment craze. The question the administrators would love to have answered by that crystal ball is: "Does it have a long and viable future?" If they knew the answer to that question, they would know what approach to take in regard to the 50-over game.

The traditional limited-overs game is a very valuable commodity; the showpiece World Cup drags in hundreds of millions of dollars in television rights and sponsorship money. In most countries it has underwritten Test cricket since the Kerry Packer-led revolution. However, though large crowds still attend and view the 50-over game, there is an increasing sense of disillusionment with the format, and words like "boring" and "repetitive" are regularly used to describe certain periods of the game.

There is so much 50-over cricket played, and yet so few of these games are linked in a meaningful way, that players become stale and the games take on a repetitive air. The obvious answer is to have fewer meaningless games and more matches that are linked to a prestige tournament involving only the stronger nations.

The limited-overs game has evolved in a haphazard fashion; a problem is perceived with cricket at large, and a new, shortened version of the game is immediately devised. There appears to be little thought given to how the different versions are integrated to form a viable and workable whole.

All the different forms of limited-overs cricket serve to popularise and finance cricket, but the weakness in the system is the main commodity - the players. All forms of limited-overs cricket are at their most entertaining when the best players are performing. Therefore it is the internationals who bear the brunt of the workload. And it is the nature of the game that the shorter the duration, the more the limitations of a player are exposed.​

The Full article

 

[vic_orthdox]

Hmmm, SJS, I think that what the thread is about is those who are actually playing the game; rather than ex-players who haven't ever actually partaken in a game of Twenty20.

 

[Goughy]

Hmmm, SJS, I think that what the thread is about is those who are actually playing the game; rather than ex-players who haven't ever actually partaken in a game of Twenty20.

One would think so..

James Lawton: Twenty20 slogging may give us a vision of the future, but it certainly isn't cricket​

18th September 2007
The Independent​

Or the sublime Garfield Sobers smiting Malcolm Nash for six sixes in an over. That last feat was a diamond which, when we saw it, we knew would glitter for ever. In Twenty20 it would probably have brought on not much more than a bout of flatulence.[/INDENT][/I]

As impressive as Sobers effort was it was still done against a left arm quick who was bowling spin for one of the only times in his career. Hardly 'normal' circumstances.

 

[SJS]

Louts threaten to gatecrash Twenty20 party

By Derek Pringle
The Telegraph​

Twenty20 cricket is upon us again. In its fifth year, this attenuated form of the game is proving as popular as ever with some administrators claiming it to be the summer football. But you have to be careful for what you wish when chasing the widest possible audience, and following shameful events at Southgate on Monday night, you might be forgiven for thinking it comes with yob culture attached.

Southgate is a club ground situated in a leafy part of north London. In an effort to take cricket away from Lord's and around the county, Middlesex play several games there a season. Two days ago, they hosted Hampshire and won a rain-reduced Twenty20 match by five runs. A thrilling game you might think, but what happened off the field - with Hampshire players abused by the crowd and the Middlesex dressing room ransacked of wallets - ought to cause deep concern, especially after Hampshire's captain Nic Pothas, claimed the crowd's taunts were not unusual.

The Hampshire team bus had a window broken, but this happened when it was empty and from a stone thought to have been thrown from outside the ground. Not, as has been implied in some reports, because the Hampshire players refused to sign autographs. The visitors did reject requests for signatures, but as Pothas later explained, only because the level and content of abuse had exceeded acceptable limits.

"We are big boys," Pothas said. "If people take the mickey out of you or comment about the way you look, that's happy days. But if people talk about what they want to do to your mother and it starts going to a more personal level then we have to take a stand. If you do that to us, then we won't sign autographs for your kids."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Middlesex chief executive Vinny Codrington reckons the crowd's behaviour was fine. "I don't think the level of abuse was bad," he said. "I did not hear of a single incident of misbehaviour during the course of the evening, not one. None of the stewards reported any incident, and Hampshire made no complaints."

Cricket, despite its genteel image of bucolic charm, is not immune from oiks, so we are not talking about the end of innocence here. But part of Twenty20's mission statement was to attract a new audience and many reckon that, along with the rise in the number of women and children at matches, there is a growing boorish element.​

 

[SJS]

Hmmm, SJS, I think that what the thread is about is those who are actually playing the game; rather than ex-players who haven't ever actually partaken in a game of Twenty20.

I know but I am finding it difficult to locate quotes by current cricketers so I am just putting those that I am coming across. Hope there will be more from current players along the way

 

[Matt79]

James Lawton: Twenty20 slogging may give us a vision of the future, but it certainly isn't cricket​

18th September 2007
The Independent​

....
Where Twenty20 brings us is to that novelty shop with the funny masks – and the stink bombs.[/INDENT][/I]

That's freakin' awesome!

 

[SJS]

BRIAN LARA

DUBAI, July 21: West Indies skipper Brian Lara says he is not fascinated by the Twenty20 version of cricket because it does not test the ability of a player but agrees the new format has spectator value.

"Test cricket is my game. It is a game I really love to play. Before being asked to captain the team for the third time, I tried to guide my career in the direction of playing more Test cricket and less one-day games," Lara, the leading scorer in Tests, said.

"I don't think it (Twenty20) tests the ability of players like Tests do. But it is good for the crowd. You are playing a sport, and sport is all about spectators," Lara was quoted as saying by the 'Khaleej Times'.

Lara, who is in Dubai to appear on the Chevrolet Cricket Show while the Stanford Twenty20 Tournament is underway in West Indies, also said "it is necessary to produce results in Tests to keep interest in the game alive".​

 

[Scaly piscine]

A lot of Aussies mouthing off about something they don't have a clue about so far.

I'm be more interested in the Aussies who've been here and playing Twenty20, such as the bit from Stuart Law.

 

[Matt79]

Same lame rejoinder from you as well. Lara, Roebuck, and Atherton are Australian?

 

[Scaly piscine]

James Lawton: Twenty20 slogging [snip]​

That's about as far as anyone need read for that article.

 

[The Sean]

That's about as far as anyone need read for that article.

It sure is. Encapculates the whole thing quite nicely, I think.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Same lame rejoinder from you as well. Lara, Roebuck, and Atherton are Australian?

Same old inability to read, where did I state there were Australian?

Lara didn't really say anything other than his personal preference. Atherton I've already addressed. No idea who Roebuck is, but there is no shortage of clueless journalists.

 

[Richard]

.

Same old inability to read, where did I state there were Australian?

A lot of Aussies mouthing off about something they don't have a clue about so far.

I'm be more interested in the Aussies who've been here and playing Twenty20, such as the bit from Stuart Law.

 

[Matt79]

Yeah, more like an inability to express yourself clearly, than any illiteracy problems on my part, I fear.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Congrats you can't read either Richard.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Yeah, more like an inability to express yourself clearly, than any illiteracy problems on my part, I fear.

Bollocks, if you can't properly interpret something as clear as that it most certainly is a fault on your part.

 

[Richard]

Congrats you can't read either Richard.

Yes, I can actually. It's very obvious what that post appears to mean: that most of the stuff so far in this thread has been from Australians (and also those who don't have a clue what they're on about).

If you meant something else, you expressed it very poorly.

 

[SJS]

PONTING

SYDNEY, Jan 10 (Reuters) - The lure of winning another World Cup has convinced Australia captain Ricky Ponting to start taking Twenty/20 a bit more serious.

Ponting has always regarded the abbreviated form of the game as little more than a hit-and-giggle but is starting to think more seriously about it with the inaugural Twenty/20 World Cup scheduled for South Africa this year.

,,,,,

"I enjoy playing the game but I think it's best played when it is just a fun sort of game and there is not too much riding on it," Ponting told a news conference.

"We know that there's a world championship coming up and I guess if we keep playing like that, then bring it on."​

 

[SJS]

GRAHAM THORPE

I think while it keeps selling around and keeps entertaining spectators with their presence at cricket matches it means Twenty20 is very successful and very popular.

We will see how the Twenty20 World Cup goes in South Africa but I would expect it to be a big hit. The players like it, the spectators like and I think it is here to stay at the moment.

But it is important that we keep it in the box that it's in. It's fun that is what cricket should be and if gets another generation of cricketers, young cricket people through to watch then it has to be a good thing.​

Source : rediff,com​