T-20 is not Cricket, it’s ‘Cricketised Baseball’
Cricket is graceful artistry like ballet. Recall a Don Bradman squar drive, a Collin Cowdrey square cut or our own Roy Dias off drive. What a feast to the eye. Batting in cricket is all stroke play artistry. The beauty in cricket lies in a well executed stroke, even a forward defensive stroke properly executed. T-20 on the other hand is a modified form a baseball played under cricket format, conditions and rules with the sole objective being to slog the ball over the ropes. T-20 is entertained sans ‘beauty’ or ‘artistry’.
Sir Don Bradman
To the learned cricket spectator, a cricket match is a ‘science’ a mental battle between the batsman and bowler. The bowler varies his length and direction whilst adjusting the fielders according to the ‘strengths and weaknesses’ of the batsman and tries to get him out. The batsman in turn ‘studies’ the bowler, observes the field setting and gets his runs whilst safeguarding his wicket. Observing this ‘mental battle’ to out-manoeuvre the other is fascinating to the knowledgeable ‘cricket eye’. It’s not always to see the ball passing the ‘boundary’. Unfortunately the vast majority of spectators at a T-20 match wish to have a ‘jolly time’ drinking, making a noise and dancing whilst watching wild hitting and not to enjoy and appreciate the finer points of the game.
T-20 is wild blind hitting. It’s the answer to the slogan ‘hit out or get out’. That’s why we often see batsman jumping out of the crease, swinging the bat wildly and missing the ball. Awards such as for ‘ the most number of sixes encourage wild slogging. There are only few beautiful off drives in T-20 because most of the balls on the ‘off’ are cut across to the ‘leg’.
Kerry Packer who introduced the ‘shorter version of cricket’, the 50-over game was a gambler who main concern was money and not the advancement of cricket. When all cricket grounds in Australia shunned him, he prepared an artificial cricket pitch and had it ‘implanted’ on a football ground. He made his money, wrote his name in the history books and changed the value of cricket. Nevertheless there is more cricket in the 50-over game than in T-20.
Cricket inculcates concentration, patience, courage, dedication, fortitude etc. all character forming virtues. All good cricketers, especially Test cricketers are perfect gentlemen and efficient leaders. T-20 on the other hand, promotes impatience.
T-20 should be banned in schools, the cradle of cricket, where the fundamental skills of cricket are introduced.
There would be hundreds who would disagree with me and ‘cross swords’, yet I am sure there would be even a handful who would agree with me.
Let’s preserve the gentleman’s game and not devalue and vandalise it.
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