What an awful concept

[Scaly piscine]

Originally Posted by Jono

If there's such a great contest between bat and ball in 20/20 cricket, then why the hell are there no slips after 2 overs?

That depends, but slips aren't a prerequisite to having a balance and contest between bat and ball.

[TT Boy]

Originally Posted by Jono

If there's such a great contest between bat and ball in 20/20 cricket, then why the hell are there no slips after 2 overs?

I've seen plenty of sides have a slip fielder not only after the second over but even after the six over point. To put that into some kind of context, how many times do you see a slip employed after the PowerPlays in ODI cricket? Not many a time... And even in recent one day series between India and England, Paul Collingwood was routinely getting rid of his slips after only two or three overs. As Scaly said, slips are not a prerequisite to have a contest between bat and ball, especially on wickets which are slow and low.

[howardj]

Twenty20 is too short to get excited about boundaries and sixes - they happen so often that it becomes monotonous, not unique or exciting. And it's also too short to get too excited when a wicket falls - because you know (except for rare occasions) there's not a snowballs chance in hell that a side is going to come close to being bowled out.

It's designed, in the main, to draw people in who have short attention spans and who are not really cricket fans. The idea that these sort of people are then going to go to become lovers of Test cricket (when they probably, prior to the Twenty20 slog fest, have never shown any interest in the game at all) I actually find quite laughable and totally baseless.

[howardj]

Having said that, I don't mind if they have Twenty20 at domestic level, or to open an international tour. I just don't want to see games at the expense of ODI or Test cricket - games that actually have substance; games that actually ebb and flow.

[howardj]

Originally Posted by FaaipDeOiad

The real reason I don't like 20/20 is just that I find it kind of boring, more or less for the reason Jono offered in this thread, but in terms of the impact it's likely to have, I think ODI cricket has a much healthier balance between the different skills of the game. Obviously just limiting the number of overs played has an impact on tactics, but I think 50 overs is a better balance than 20, where you can have aggressive bowling and fielding and players who can play long innings (like a Michael Bevan type) succeed, but the tougher requirements in terms of fielding and the pressures on the scoring rate still exist.

There is a place for limited overs cricket, obviously, but everyone would agree that a game of 2 overs would be stupid, so there has to be a limit. Much more than 50 overs wouldn't be different enough from test cricket to warrant being a different format, but 20 for me places far too much emphasis on big hitting and run rates and suffers in terms of what cricket is truly about, which is the contest between bat and ball, with bowlers trying to take wickets and batsmen trying to make runs.

Encapsulates perfectly what I was thinking. If you're going to have limited overs, then think about how many overs you limit the game to, in order to avoid making boundaries monotonous to the point of being meaningless and in order to avoid producing games that have absolutely no ebb and flow; games that have no character.

[chaminda_00]

Originally Posted by howardj

in order to avoid making boundaries monotonous to the point of being meaningless and in order to avoid producing games that have absolutely no ebb and flow; games that have no character.

Could say the exact same thing about ODIs. You don't score 400 runs from grounds with proper boundaries. Any game that has 350 plus runs each innings has little ebb, flow or character.

The thing people seem to forgot is there is next to no contest these days between bat and bowl in ODIs. Alteast in Twenty20 the joke of contest is over in 40 overs and not 100 overs of watching batsmen have batting practise. The only true form of cricket that has a contest between bat and bowl is Test Cricket and even that is limited these days. ODIs and Twenty20 both have screwed contest between bat and bowl. I wish some posters start to wake up to this fact some time soon as they are becoming very boring right now.

[Jono]

Originally Posted by chaminda_00

Could say the exact same thing about ODIs. You don't score 400 runs from grounds with proper boundaries. Any game that has 350 plus runs each innings has little ebb, flow or character.

The thing people seem to forgot is there is next to no contest these days between bat and bowl in ODIs. Alteast in Twenty20 the joke of contest is over in 40 overs and not 100 overs of watching batsmen have batting practise. The only true form of cricket that has a contest between bat and bowl is Test Cricket and even that is limited these days. ODIs and Twenty20 both have screwed contest between bat and bowl. I wish some posters start to wake up to this fact some time soon as they are becoming very boring right now.

Except here's where you're wrong. In a ODI game you can have a team fall to 3/40 off 10 overs, but then settle a bit, have a good partnership, and suddenly they're going at 5.5-6 an over. That's what we call a momentum change.

Alternatively, you can have a team be 0-100, and then lose a couple of wickets in a big chase and totally slow down. Changing the momentum of the game again.

Best example is the India vs. England 6th ODI. England looked gone in their first innings, recovered and posted an excellent total. India then were cruising with Tendulkar and Ganguly, but then stuttered losing wickets at regular intervals. Then Uthappa and Dhoni rescued the innings, and they got home.

I reckon I switched my opinion as to who will win the game around 6-7 times during those 100 overs. You don't see that in 20/20.

[SJS]

We may actually get a nine ball fifty with nine consecutive sixes .

We might finally run out of drugs to induce that high

[Swervy]

Originally Posted by Jono

I reckon I switched my opinion as to who will win the game around 6-7 times during those 100 overs. You don't see that in 20/20.

mmm...I am sure I have plenty of times...maybe more so given that even just one over can change a situation dramatically

[chaminda_00]

Originally Posted by Jono

I reckon I switched my opinion as to who will win the game around 6-7 times during those 100 overs. You don't see that in 20/20.

The same thing happens in Twenty20, just the difference as Swervy pointed out all it takes is one over to change a the momentum of a game, rather then 5-10 overs like 50 over cricket.

[Perm]

There are momentum swings in Twenty20, just smaller and not quite as dramatic or extended as in ODI's or Tests, which is understandable.

[SJS]

Originally Posted by Perm

There are momentum swings in Twenty20, just smaller and not quite as dramatic or extended as in ODI's or Tests, which is understandable.

Absolutely

Just imagine five consecutive sixes and then miracle of miracles a dot ball !!

As Colin Cowdrey famously said.

The dot ball is the Holy Grail !

[FaaipDeOiad]

Originally Posted by chaminda_00

Could say the exact same thing about ODIs. You don't score 400 runs from grounds with proper boundaries. Any game that has 350 plus runs each innings has little ebb, flow or character.

The thing people seem to forgot is there is next to no contest these days between bat and bowl in ODIs. Alteast in Twenty20 the joke of contest is over in 40 overs and not 100 overs of watching batsmen have batting practise. The only true form of cricket that has a contest between bat and bowl is Test Cricket and even that is limited these days. ODIs and Twenty20 both have screwed contest between bat and bowl. I wish some posters start to wake up to this fact some time soon as they are becoming very boring right now.

Couldn't disagree more, really. There is a contest between bat and ball in 50 over cricket. You see attacking fields, attacking bowling, sides being bowled out, sides losing early wickets then recovering to make a good total, and the opposite. While those sorts of things can happen in 20/20, it's on such a different scale that there's simply no significance to it. A team who loses wickets will either change absolutely nothing and the wickets will be irrelevant, or if they lose enough wickets to make a difference the game will be dead as a contest anyway, like in the Australia v Sri Lanka game recently. Wickets are essentially a hiccup in the run rate, they aren't a means to an end for the bowling side, therefore there is no desire from the bowling team to bowl out the batting team and no contest between bat and ball.

And really, it's quite absurd to argue that ODIs have a reduced contest between bat and ball because of the limit in the overs and the focus on rapid scoring, and then suggest that 20/20 is no worse. Naturally, limiting the number of overs brings the focus to batsmen, and the fewer overs you have the more batsman define the game. The shorter the game, the more defensive the fielding side has to become, because the less chance there is of having success with attacking cricket. If you had a game of 9 balls it would be impossible to bowl the batting side out, therefore the entire contest would be which batting side could get closest to 54 runs, and the difference between a dot ball and a wicket would be precisely 0.

I hate the 400 v 400 type ODIs that you mention as well, but they are few and far between and only occur when the bowling is absolutely horrible or the conditions are slanted way too far in the batsman's favour, ie a flat wicket and a tiny boundary. Essentially, every 20/20 game is one of those 400 v 400 ODIs, just shorter.

[Scaly piscine]

Originally Posted by FaaipDeOiad

Couldn't disagree more, really. There is a contest between bat and ball in 50 over cricket. You see attacking fields, attacking bowling, sides being bowled out, sides losing early wickets then recovering to make a good total, and the opposite. While those sorts of things can happen in 20/20, it's on such a different scale that there's simply no significance to it. A team who loses wickets will either change absolutely nothing and the wickets will be irrelevant, or if they lose enough wickets to make a difference the game will be dead as a contest anyway, like in the Australia v Sri Lanka game recently. Wickets are essentially a hiccup in the run rate, they aren't a means to an end for the bowling side, therefore there is no desire from the bowling team to bowl out the batting team and no contest between bat and ball.

Attacking fields? Pretty rare in most ODIs. In ODIs dobbers can be as or more effective as a decent 90mph+ bowler. Sure you get the odd match where the ball does something, or bowling at the death is a bit different, but it's mostly about not bowling a delivery that can be smashed at minimal risk.

To say there's no significance to losing wickets in Twenty20 just again shows your ignorance of it. Your logic for saying there is no contest between bat and ball is nothing short of laughable. In Twenty20 bowlers can dictate the course of a game as much as batsmen can, that's why there's a contest between bat and ball - of course the goalposts may change but that happens in all forms of cricket.

[Dissector]

Taking wickets is absolutely crucial in 20-20 games because in-form batsmen can often score 10+ runs an over at will. This was shown in the last semi-final when Australia was cruising before the wickets of Hayden, Symonds and Clarke completely turned the game around.

The same goes for the India-SA game when early wickets through good swing bowling destroyed the SA top order. RP Singh's spell in that game would have been effective in any form of the game.