More luck than judgement

I have a confession to make. Something I want to get off my chest.

Without wanting to sound like a kind of cricketing Luddite, I just don’t get the whole Twenty20 revolution.

I’m normally all for change or ‘progress’ and we repeatedly hear how sport is an ‘entertainment business’, but something just didn’t sit right with me from the start of this whole insatiable thirst for quickfire cricket.

It took me a little while to put my finger on it but I’ve finally worked it out.

The problem for me is that a large percentage of this new game is based on pure and simple luck.

Gloss it up as hard-hitting skill as you like, and I know there is some talent required to time the ball over the ropes, but there can be know doubt that every time someone launches the ball into the air they are playing with fire.

The players who succeed in Twenty20 rely on good fortune just as much as a good eye and shot selection.

Bowlers who get smacked straight to a fielder on the boundary rope get just the same result in the wicket columns as those who beat a player all ends up and send their stumps flying out the ground.

For a game that places so much emphasis on numbers and statistics, the shorter format brings with it a much higher element based on fortune that cannot be expressed in pure numbers.

With all the riches on offer for the winners now, how do we tell who deserves it and who is just blessed with some sort of lucky charm – does it even matter?

The whole point of test cricket is that it is just that, the ultimate test, five days of combat relying on skill and mental strength. Invariably the better side comes out on top, especially over a series.

In Twenty20 the chance for an upset is so much higher because fortune can favour one man on either side who can turn the game on it’s head in the space of a few minutes.

It is cricket condensed, downsized into a frenzied period of activity, but there are a number of elements of the game that are lost such as the ability to pick the delivery to leave or hit and manoeuvring the field through clever deflections.

For me it has parallels with a penalty shoot out in football, the skills involved are based on the general game and the better players normally have the advantage.

But in this ultra-simplified version anything can happen, the playing field is levelled and the upset is on the cards.

I hate sounding like an ultra-conservative lauding the status quo in the face of exciting change, but there we go, I’ve said my piece.

Unfortunately there is one all-conquering argument to shoot down any of the anti-revolutionaries like myself and that is the old business maxim – ‘give the people what they want’.

As long as the demand for Twenty20 remains and the money floods in, the revolution will continue to move forward.