T20 is hailed as the shortest format of cricket but is it short enough? It’s three-and-a-half hours long — longer than an average movie or sport. Any movie longer than two hours and a quarter is met with scornful and hostile reactions; however, the duration of a T20 match is met with a sense of liberation. It’s fiercely argued that T20 is the crowning glory of cricket: for one, it’s short and fast-paced; and apparently nobody is interested in Test cricket. Since the whole fuss of T20 is its short duration, it is still long by global standards. Why be content with just twenty overs: why not ten, seven, six or five overs to put the game on par with elite sports of tolerable lengths to match the rickety attention spans of public? There are more formats mushrooming, as if there weren’t enough already: T10, a ten-over format is sanctioned at club level; The Hundred is soon to be launched by England, a convoluted format of 100-ball innings that will only shorten the game by half hour. When confronted by this question, some fans do concede that the sport will eventually get shorter. So why not do it now? Why not accelerate the “evolution”? It’s not a scientific technology that’s not ready for the present times.
There’s already a barrage of world cups, with nearly one world cup each year. With the proliferation of formats, the world cups will also increase. How many more formats can cricket sustain? Where does this lust for multiple formats end? How many grains of sand can you remove from the heap of sand until it is no longer a heap?
It’s contended that 20-20 cricket is the know-all and end-all of cricket. Wait until the authorities thrust T10, The Hundred, S6, F5 or other skimpier formats. They tell us that we the audience are in control, when in actuality we have no control. They can get viewers hooked on to any format they want; people eventually acquiesce; just like nobody had asked for T20 cricket; international cricket was in great health even before that but they still got public hooked on to it. In truth, people have no choice. People like only what they want them to like.
There’s already a barrage of world cups, with nearly one world cup each year. With the proliferation of formats, the world cups will also increase. How many more formats can cricket sustain? Where does this lust for multiple formats end? How many grains of sand can you remove from the heap of sand until it is no longer a heap?
It’s contended that 20-20 cricket is the know-all and end-all of cricket. Wait until the authorities thrust T10, The Hundred, S6, F5 or other skimpier formats. They tell us that we the audience are in control, when in actuality we have no control. They can get viewers hooked on to any format they want; people eventually acquiesce; just like nobody had asked for T20 cricket; international cricket was in great health even before that but they still got public hooked on to it. In truth, people have no choice. People like only what they want them to like.
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