Cricketers' Views on Twenty20

[Sanz]

This thread is for what Cricketers think about the Twenty20 version of the game. I will start it off NZ Captain's views :-

Vettori gives Twenty20 thumbs down

Cricinfo staff

September 18, 2007



Daniel Vettori: "I personally love the more traditional forms of the game" © Getty Images




While organisers and broadcasters purr over Twenty20, Daniel Vettori, New Zealand's captain, has given the tournament and the format a thumbs down.

"I hope Twenty20 cricket will only be part of the landscape and not the future of the game," Vettori said. "I personally love the more traditional forms of the game, that is Test cricket and one-day internationals. But I suppose we guys have to take this game seriously too."

He went on to explain that captaining in matches was a hard ask. "It is not easy ... because you don't know what you will run into. You might have the best of plans but they may all have to be discarded at the spur of the moment.

"You have to be really thinking on your feet. There is very little time to take decisions with so much happening and it is not as if you have all the time in the world to formulate plans.

"The more wickets you take, better the chance for you to peg back the opposition. A couple of sixes and you will suddenly run out of ideas. So, it always helps if you are able to bag some wickets."

http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/twen...ry/311446.html

[jammay123]

we all know ponting isnt too fond of it.

[TT Boy]

Are you going to include the opinions of cricketers who actually enjoy this format, I.e. the majority. Or is this just selected bull****?

[Sanz]

Originally Posted by TT Boy

Are you going to include the opinions of cricketers who actually enjoy this format, I.e. the majority. Or is this just selected bull****?

Definately. If you find someone saying positive about it, please feel free to post it here.

[TT Boy]

Originally Posted by Sanz

Definately. If you find someone saying positive about it, please feel free to post it here.

I will...

[SJS]

KEVIN PIETERSEN

"Twenty20 is different to 50-overs cricket. It is a lottery. It's a fascinating game, but I'm not too sure that you can ever prepare 100% for it. I think it is hit and miss - big time."

Against Zimbabwe, he was out to his fourth reverse sweep and shrugged that it was "a silly shot in a silly game."

In Twenty20, Pietersen sees no cause for excessive analysis. Those holding doctrinaire principles will be resisted as long as possible, and told to save them for the longer forms of the game. This is a format where he will insist that no-one has the right to condemn him even if he attempts to chip the ball over the wicketkeeper while standing on his head. And, armed with that philosophy, he will doubtless play with such élan that he will be more successful than most.

Source : Guardian 18th Sept 2007

[SJS]

MARK NICHOLAS

Convincing as Twenty20 cricket has become, it would be dangerous for the game at large to lose sight of the attraction and advantages that are still clear in 50-over cricket. It was once unimaginable to say it but the options, subtleties and basic requirements of technique and tenacity in the 50-over format seem rather appealing. The players have to make choices and we see more of their character because of this.

They dictate the play more than is possible in Twenty20, which basically does the dictating itself because it is so short. The sooner that 50-over cricket is put on an elite pedestal, with a shorter, more meaningful World Cup as its showpiece, the sooner Twenty20 can become the game's sole vehicle for unconditional globalisation.

Twenty20 is exciting because it is condensed. It is the natural heir to the 40-over cricket that quickly established itself in the late Sixties as the "new black" – hip, fast, accessible and satisfying. Previously unseen audiences were as seduced then as they are now. Forty years on, it is obvious to everyone except the people who run the game in England day-to-day, that the 40-over format is a white elephant. In fact, it is more dangerous than that. It is an energy sapper, an injury-sucker and a diversion from the accepted formats that are played everywhere else in the world.

And all for a few bob more. By heaven, how money plays havoc with the thinking of those in power. One day, when many have passed on and the rest are in slippers, it will be crystal clear that English cricket suffered at the hands of greed. For now, we go blindly on, pursuing everything and anything at the expense of our best players – by that I mean that Andrew Flintoff is physically knackered and Kevin Pietersen mentally knackered – at a time when the national team have an opportunity to be rather good.

Source : The Telegraph

[SJS]

MICHAEL ATHERTON

Fifty and 40-over cricket have already felt the pinch - they become even less attractive to sponsors now - and this will be exaggerated. County staffs may well be positioned with Twenty20 primarily in mind. Star players may be rested from first-class games in order to be fit and ready for the Twenty20 tournament. Suddenly Twenty20 starts to look like a threat to the primacy of the championship. Will a county be more interested in producing Test players for England, or winning a share of a $5 million pot? It doesn't take much of a clairvoyant to see the potential threat to the traditional forms of the game.

As an enthusiastic supporter of Twenty20 from its inception, the success it has generated in such a short time in revitalising domestic cricket has been heartening. But I have always felt that Twenty20 should have remained just that - a vehicle to revive domestic cricket. Fifty-over cricket and obviously Test cricket, remain vital to protecting the very essence of the game, which is a contest between batsmen and bowlers, bat and ball. Twenty20 is the equivalent of the gas chamber for a bowler. If the game's future evolves entirely around Twenty20, why would any young, talented cricketer want to become one?

The recently disgraced Shoaib Akhtar might have overstated his case when he slammed the game's administrators for making it into a batsman's game, but he had a point.

Now that Twenty20 has spread to the international arena, its effects could be more wide ranging than either I, or, I suspect, its creators would wish. It is hard to see a future for 50-over cricket and if, as I do, you still love the slower rhythm and sub-plots of Test cricket, you might fear for that, too.

[Langeveldt]

Originally Posted by SJS

MICHAEL ATHERTON

Fifty and 40-over cricket have already felt the pinch - they become even less attractive to sponsors now - and this will be exaggerated. County staffs may well be positioned with Twenty20 primarily in mind. Star players may be rested from first-class games in order to be fit and ready for the Twenty20 tournament. Suddenly Twenty20 starts to look like a threat to the primacy of the championship. Will a county be more interested in producing Test players for England, or winning a share of a $5 million pot? It doesn't take much of a clairvoyant to see the potential threat to the traditional forms of the game.

As an enthusiastic supporter of Twenty20 from its inception, the success it has generated in such a short time in revitalising domestic cricket has been heartening. But I have always felt that Twenty20 should have remained just that - a vehicle to revive domestic cricket. Fifty-over cricket and obviously Test cricket, remain vital to protecting the very essence of the game, which is a contest between batsmen and bowlers, bat and ball. Twenty20 is the equivalent of the gas chamber for a bowler. If the game's future evolves entirely around Twenty20, why would any young, talented cricketer want to become one?

The recently disgraced Shoaib Akhtar might have overstated his case when he slammed the game's administrators for making it into a batsman's game, but he had a point.

Now that Twenty20 has spread to the international arena, its effects could be more wide ranging than either I, or, I suspect, its creators would wish. It is hard to see a future for 50-over cricket and if, as I do, you still love the slower rhythm and sub-plots of Test cricket, you might fear for that, too.

Completely agree with him, what a guy

[Athlai]

Same here.

[SJS]

DARREN MADDY

"Probably the reason I've had so much success in Twenty20 is because of the lack of thought that's gone into it," said Maddy. "I just watch the ball and try to hit it."

[SJS]

ANDREW STRAUSS

Despite initial scepticism, Andrew Strauss found that his batting improved as a result of Twenty20 Cup cricket for Middlesex last year. “It was fast and frantic, and to transfer it to international level will just raise the interest,” he said. “I think it is here to stay with Tests and one-day internationals as we know them. There is room for all three.”

Source : The Times June 2004

[Scaly piscine]

Atherton talking his usual utter bollocks. Twenty20 games are more of a contest between bat and ball than ODIs are. The standard ODI road gives virtually no chance to bowlers of bowling someone out, particularly as the ball gets older. If the batsmen bat well you've got practically no chance of bowling him out.

In Twenty20 the batsmen have to score early in their innings, they have to take risks, they have to attack every bowler to some extent. The ball is new most of the innings so you can do something with it, the bowler always has a chance because of all these factors. See the impact good and bad bowling has on a game in Twenty20, then compare it to the impact it has on a typical ODI road.


As for KP he got out to another reverse sweep against NZ, but then he is an idiot - not learned anything from what happened to Australia against Zimbabwe.

[SJS]

GREG CHAPPELL

Former Test captain and the previous Indian coach Greg Chappell has been watching the lantana-like spread of Twenty20 with some concern.

He says that while he is happy with the new game being played as a fundraiser at the domestic level, he is concerned that it might affect the focus of our most important breeding grounds for Test players -- the states.

Chappell points out that the one-day game has so distracted most of the other cricketing nations that they have fallen away in the five-day game.

He worries that the simplistic Twenty20 form could do further damage.

For a start, he finds the form is naive and needs development. "It's got limitations as a form, it is very one-dimensional," Chappell says. "It's certainly not the panacea for our ills as some consider it."

Chappell says the Twenty20 game lacks depth, that there is no penalty for losing wickets as it's hard to be bowled out and there is little fielding involved as the ball generally sails off into the crowd.

"At this stage it is just about who can hit the ball the furthest and that is not enough to sustain interest," he says.

Chappell says that Australia has stayed strong at Test cricket because it has understood the value of the four-day game at state level, but if the states are distracted by money on offer for Twenty20, the Test team will suffer.

"I think the idea of generating more money for domestic cricket is fantastic," he says.

"However the disparity between the potential to win $2m playing Twenty20 and what you get to win the Pura Cup is going to affect the way people think about the game. "It will affect programming and so on and it needs to be cleverly thought through.

"The four-day game is a very important part of the development process in cricket and that needs to be understood and it needs to be protected as much as possible"

Source : The Australian

[SJS]

KIM HUGHES

"Lets face it, if you've got the chance to win $128,000 compared with the chance to win $2m, then there's no choice about what you do from a business point of view," Hughes says.

"I am of a strong view Twenty20 should be left at a state level or a county level, but I don't see any benefit of it for our national team."

Like Chappell, Hughes believes the prizemoney and concentration on Twenty20 could add to the decline of Test skills. "We've seen the deterioration in standard in Test cricket (because of the one-day game)," he says. "Apart from Australia, there is probably only one other side interested in playing at the top level.

"The other nations are happy concentrating on the one-day game and it's their loss.

"One-day cricket is a sheltered game where you get flat wickets, the batsmen are protected, the bowlers can't bowl bouncers and ordinary blokes start to look pretty good.

"Look at the standard of Test cricket in the West Indies -- they are pathetic. Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are no good. England has fallen off the pace, India and Pakistan are ordinary.

"Players who can play good Test cricket can play all the other forms, but there are plenty who can play one-day games but they're not within a bull's roar of being Test cricketers. You need to get your priorities right and most nations don't."