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Twenty
20
Twenty 20 is a brand
new form of cricket,
which I—having spent most of 2004 in various non-cricket playing
nations (Mexico,
USA
and Argentina)—had
only barely heard of before coming home and hearing about it everywhere.
Twenty
20 gets its name because each side faces only 20 overs (in the
one-day form of the game they face 50). It's a streamlined version
of the game that takes a bare three hours to play, and that includes
the 15 minutes in between the two innings. As opposed to the five
days of test
cricket match and eight hours of a one-day
(pyjama cricket) game, that's insane. That's backyard cricket. In
England, where Twenty 20 was invented, games have been selling out,
and a third of those attending have never seen a game of cricket
live before. New converts to cricket? Sounds good to me.
There are some nutty rules: the punishment for a no-ball seems extreme
(two extra runs and the batter gets a free hit, ie, for one ball
can't get out except if they're run out). Why is a no-ball so much
worse than bowling wide? But the fielding restrictions make sense,
encouraging free scoring, and I love the time restrictions. Each
batter has to get to the crease within 90 seconds and the 20 overs
have to be bowled in 80 minutes. This prevents cricketers using
feet-dragging and procrastination as a tactic and it's great to
see. (Not that Shoaib Akhtar's use of such tactics isn't frequently
hilarious.)
Yesterday night I got to watch Twenty 20 for the first time. Pakistan
versus Australia's second string team, Australia A. The first
innings was a ripper. It was like cricket on crack (or "cracket"
as Scott dubbed it). Australia A batted first, scoring fast and
furious with a run rate of 9 an over, employing some of the most
unorthodox batting I've seen in a while. It wasn't always pretty,
but it was entertaining. There were some speccie wickets taken,
with Shoaib Akhtar exploding the stumps several times (including
once on a free hit when, tragically, it counted for nowt). Seeing
stumps cartwheeling and bails spinning through the air. Sigh. One
of my very favourite things.
The second innings sucked. Pakistan just couldn't be arsed actually
batting. They looked like they thought Twenty 20 was beneath them,
scoring at a rate that would have been slow for test cricket. Running
between the wickets as if they were going for a gentle evening jog,
not running flat out to save their lives (or, rather, their wickets).
The four year old next door runs faster. And the result of their
half-arsed running? Run out twice. On neither occasion were the
services of the third umpire called upon. The only reason I didn't
switch channels to watch the test match between South Africa and
England (c'mon South Africa!) is because I was determined to watch
a whole Twenty 20 game no matter what. Australia A won easily. It
was dull.
However, I don't blame Twenty 20; I blame Pakistan. I imagine a
game played between two sides who give a toss, who bat and run like
they mean it, would be two innings of fun, not just one. It's a
game that addresses the problem with one-day cricket: the predictabilty
and boring middle twenty overs. I hear yesterday's game between
WA Warriors (what a dumb name—why not the Sandgropers?) and
the Victorian Bushrangers (Bushrangers? Please!) was fair
dinkum. A ripper of the first order. Wish I'd seen it first, instead
of last night's fifty percent affair.
And anything that gets more people into watching cricket is just
fine with me. Now I'll get back to ridgy didge cricket: the test
in South Africa.
Sydney,
14 January 2005
©
2005 Justine Larbalestier
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