The World Twenty20 played in South Africa last month was everything that the 2007 ICC World Cup wasn’t. A hit, for a start. The stands in all three venues — Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town — were constantly full. The cricket look ed great, not for a moment dull, on television. The World T20, as it has come to be known (for branding demands brevity), was tightly scheduled, even if in hindsight three matches a day might have been a bit much. But that was a minor infraction, and faced little dissent.
On the face of it, the International Cricket Council’s experiment succeeded in the manner of the best reality shows. This was cricket reaching out and connecting with improbable fan bases.
The tournament was free of controversy — at any rate, no allegations of racism or murder were made — and had everything that spectators like to see in large doses: wickets, runs, sixes, fours, and giant screen replays for good measure. Crackling twists in plot kept us gripped; there was no clear favourite, and when each result was called, audience reactions varied from ecstatic to maudlin. Entertainment in cricket has never been so densely packed.
The time factor
T20 was a response to those who consider cricket an anachronism and incapable of further evolution. In order to justify its slowness, Test cricket might claim the defence of tradition: vociferous guardians of its sanctity equate inaction with good form. But the one-day game was designed in such a manner that its popularity rests wholly on its capacity to entertain.
Certainly, the last World Cup was symptomatic of cricket’s state of decline. It lasted too long, many matches were one-sided, and the tournament lurched from disaster to disaster like a Roman senator struggling to recover from a bout of gluttony. The pace of the game — ‘crawl’ would be understating things — had never attracted such negative publicity.
Time has always been a factor in sport. Major League Baseball now consciously seeks to bring the average game to a close in two hours 45 minutes, that statistic having ballooned over the years to nearly three hours. In cricket, there are penalties for time-wasting — things like excessive appealing contribute little to the drama. The three hour duration of Twenty20 — essentially the length of a Bollywood film -- is probably ideal, especially for an Indian audience.
Back in the 1960s, people didn’t have the luxury of spending five days watching a cricket match, and the one-dayer emerged as a sensible variation. This abbreviated form has gradually come to be dismissed as impractical: nobody has the time to follow a seven-hour game on television.
The shifting nature of audience tastes is not an accident. T20 fits the present transglobal culture of instant gratification. It is far from certain that we have hit saturation.
It is important to understand the nature of television entertainment. For most, it is a passive experience, a drip-feed of programmes. Fans are trained to respond mechanically to signposts such as wickets and boundaries, just as sitcom audiences are expected to echo the laughter track.
In the absence of reassuring chuckles, however, viewers feel disoriented — that was one reason for their disengagement from Arrested Development — and similarly, a time will come when the torrent of boundaries in T20 will devalue power and render the signpost meaningless.
This is a slippery slope. Soon, unless every innings begins to produce scores in excess of 250, interest will flag. There was much disappointment when Australia shot out Sri Lanka for 101. As such, few have the patience or the energy to engage with complications and subtleties in cricketing narrative; those are regarded as an indulgence for cricket aesthetes, a section that has little jurisdiction over the sport.
Any tinkering with the game’s structure must be financially viable, and will address popular demand. In T20s case, that coincides with the direction in which cricket is headed.
Mark Greatbatch and Sanath Jayasuriya gave us a hint of what to expect during successive ODI World Cups back in the 1990s. Their tactics have undeniably shaken up Test cricket.
Conservative batsmen are expected to modify their game and score at a run-a-ball. They are more prone now to fishing; bad balls are far more likely to earn a wicket.
Quick runs are of obvious benefit when trying to force a result. Australia pioneered the four-run-an-over approach, but not every side has replicated that success.
Conversely, it is possible to play good cricketing strokes in Twenty20, minimise risks and yet, as Yuvraj Singh proved, get to 50 off 12 balls — a record in any form save roadside cricket. Much pleasure may be derived from purity.
For the attendee in the stands, the odd chance that the ball might fly towards him and decapitate his neighbour will motivate him to pay attention. Part of his thrill lies in semi-direct involvement.
But from the perspective of the television viewer, the ball is not likely to breach the fourth wall and crash into his living-room furniture. The game still relies heavily on parochialism to retain interest. The promise of a good game is a bonus.
History will judge T20 as an artefact from a confused period. While this latest format appears fresh, it has not seen much innovation in bowling or stroke play, only an increased willingness on the part of the batsman to clout good balls for boundaries and sixes.
The flick over the batsman’s shoulder past fine-leg — which notoriously cost Misbah-ul-Haq his wicket and Pakistan the World T20 final — was probably the most interesting shot played; it was invented years ago by Zimbabwe’s Douglas Marillier, and memorably earned his side a win in a one-dayer against India in 2002.
The only way a bowler can repudiate assaults on his masculinity — spare a thought for Stuart Broad — is by varying his pace or bowling full outside the off-stump. The challenge lies in bowling maiden overs, not picking up wickets. Even if you manage to dismiss two batsmen, there is always someone waiting to clobber you for four sixes and two fours, and that’s all it takes to undo three tight overs.
Just as a piece of paper can only be folded so many times, cricket cannot suffer compression beyond a point. That need not imply the end of innovation, but the pressure to adapt will mount.
The World T20 was a smashing success, but the new format has a fair distance to cover, and a lot to prove, before it achieves permanence.
