NOW that the genie is out of the bottle there is a terrifying risk that as cricket tries to find a compromise between the Test and Twenty20 forms of the sport we shall lose the real game.
Cricket is in turmoil as it responds to confirmation from India that the three-hours-and-it's-all-over spectacle is the way ahead with huge amounts of money being poured into a competition which only a year or three ago would have been dismissed as a
charade.
As the International Cricket Council, dominated by India and friends, ponders how the Test match schedule can be maintained as individual countries leap on to the Twenty20 bandwagon, the England Wales Cricket Board are trying desperately not to be left behind.
The ECB have agreed a five-year deal, financed largely by the American entrepreneur Sir Allen Stanford, to play a £50m five-match series of biff-bang internationals against the West Indies to be played in Antigua and also a four-nations' tournament to be played at Lord's with the West Indies, along with two other as yet un-named countries, providing the opposition.
At the same time the ECB are seeking a way to stage a domestic tournament in this country in which county or regional teams could have their share of the Twenty20 pie. Suggestions from the Professional Cricketers' Association that some counties – including Yorkshire, Lancashire and Durham – merge for the duration of this dubious event have thankfully been rebuffed by officials from all three organisations.
They are never likely to be in favour. A merger for Twenty20 could easily be followed by similar unification for county cricket, which in turn could lead to streamlining of the non-playing staff. Instead of three chief executives there would be one.
But as Twenty20 proliferates and the ICC try to draw a balance between that and Test cricket radical claims are being made. One is that if Twenty20 takes the hold it threatens to do then there will be no market for Test cricket.
Indeed, those whose eyes are alight at the thought of making untold millions tell us that in most parts of the cricketing globe Test cricket, unlike the one-day game, is largely unwatched.
Such talk leads us to the nub of the issue: if the four-game game declines, as it inevitably must if Twenty20 takes over, how long will it be before Test cricket is no longer the game to which cricketers aspire?
The full article contains 422 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
