Chris Waters: End of 40-over game as Twenty20 offers one-day solution

TODAY marks the end of a cricketing era.
GONE (for now): 40-over cricket will disappear from the domestic crcicket calendar after today.GONE (for now): 40-over cricket will disappear from the domestic crcicket calendar after today.
GONE (for now): 40-over cricket will disappear from the domestic crcicket calendar after today.

It is the last game of 40-over county cricket.

Or at least it is until the administrators decide to move the goalposts once more and reintroduce it further down the line.

Next summer will see counties revert back to playing 50-over cricket, thus mirroring the format at international level.

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Yes, 40-over cricket ends today – or at least it does for the time being – when Glamorgan take on Nottinghamshire at Lord’s.

They will be fighting it out in the Yorkshire Bank 40 final, with both counties appearing in a one-day final for the first time in many a moon.

Glamorgan are returning to Lord’s for a one-day final for the first time since 2000, when they lost to Gloucestershire in the Benson and Hedges Cup, while Nottinghamshire are contesting their first final since beating Essex in the same competition in 1989.

Although Glamorgan will start as underdogs and Nottinghamshire as favourites, it is one of those matches that could go either way.

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Now before anyone starts to think that I am looking forward to this contest, please permit me to state my position.

I do not like 40-over cricket.

In fact, I do not like 40-over cricket, 50-over cricket, you name it.

Why, if I had my way, I would have only two forms of professional cricket – first-class cricket and Twenty20 – and allow the rest to go to rot.

In my view, Twenty20 has made all other forms of one-day cricket redundant.

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Forty-over cricket, for example, offers neither the thrills and spills of Twenty20 nor the more subtle complexities of the first-class game.

Anyone who has watched a 40-over match straight after a Twenty20 game might sympathise with that particular view.

One-day cricket, for me, is turgid by comparison, something to be endured as opposed to enjoyed.

Not everyone, of course, will share that opinion.

David Collier, for example, the England and Wales Cricket Board chief executive, believes today’s final is something to get us all salivating.

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“The Yorkshire Bank 40 final is one of the highlights of the domestic cricket calendar and both these teams will be savouring the prospect of being part of a Lord’s final once again,” he commented in an ECB press release.

“Last year’s final proved to be a gripping encounter with a dramatic finish and all cricket fans will be hoping for an equally exciting contest this Saturday to round off what has been another excellent season for the YB40 competition.”

Fair enough, it is all a matter of personal preference.

But I, for one, cannot remember last year’s 40-over final for toffee.

Closer inspection of said ECB press release reveals that it was between Hampshire and Warwickshire, with Hampshire winning by dint of losing fewer wickets after the scores were tied.

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It must have been a cracking contest and no mistake, but I must confess it failed to make an impression hereabouts.

I will say one thing, however.

I would much rather see Yorkshire and their county brethren play a 40-over competition as opposed to a 50-over one.

People claim that England have never won a global one-day trophy because their players have not been playing enough 50-over cricket at county level.

Personally, I think the reason England have never won a global one-day trophy is because they have not been good enough to win one, and surely players can adapt from 40 overs to 50?

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If not, it is rather like saying that England can never be world Test No 1 because County Championship matches last four days, whereas Test matches last five days.

The argument just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

So I, for one, will not be mourning the passing of the YB40 this afternoon, just as I will not be welcoming the advent of a 
50-over tournament next 
year.

But writing as one who was born in Nottinghamshire and whose spiritual home is Trent Bridge, I do hope Nottinghamshire give Glamorgan a good stuffing.