As he joined the sell-out crowd for a Twenty20 match at the home of Indian cricket, Kaushal Loday said he would not have come if the game was a Test.
“I’m not interested in five-day cricket, it’s too long,” Loday said outside Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium ahead of an India international.
“T20’s more entertaining. We like seeing sixes and fours,” he said.
Photo: AP
The success of the ongoing World Twenty20 should be cause for celebration for administrators, with millions of TV viewers and packed houses enjoying batting pyrotechnics from the likes of Chris Gayle and A.B. de Villiers.
However, while T20 cricket was conceived as a way for cash-strapped boards to make some money on the side, its growth in the past decade has led to fears it might devour the longest form of the game.
The official line is that T20 can spread the game and encourage newcomers to the five-day Test matches, or 50-over one-day internationals.
“We want to make sure all three formats of the game — Test, ODI and T20 — are going to able to coexist well into the future and not only survive, but flourish,” International Cricket Council (ICC) chief executive David Richardson said.
However, with the proliferation of domestic T20 tournaments giving players the chance to earn more in six weeks than they get from their boards in a year, some stars are turning their back on Tests.
With Tests often attracting paltry crowds, some players worry T20 cricket is endangering the format it was meant to underwrite.
“I think it does threaten the traditional game,” England skipper Eoin Morgan said, adding that he did not have any solution to the problem.
This year’s World T20 in India is the third on the sub-continent in a little over three years. In contrast, the ODI World Cup is every four years.
Players such as the West Indies’ Gayle have stopped playing Tests and instead earn big bucks in tournaments such as Australia’s Big Bash or the Bangladesh Premier League.
Gayle has admitted he would “not be so sad” if Test cricket died a death, while De Villiers — South Africa’s Test captain and still only 32 — recently acknowledged rumors that he was thinking of quitting international cricket in favor of Twenty20 tournaments.
“There are big tournaments going on around the world and some of them you can’t ignore because financially they make a huge difference in our lives,” he said.
The biggest is the Indian Premier League (IPL) where an evening’s entertainment features cheerleaders, fireworks and cameos by Bollywood stars.
Speaking outside the Wankhede, home to India’s board and the Mumbai Indians IPL side, Indian fan Rohit Bhosale said he only had time for T20s.
“The whole crowd seems to be enjoying T20 cricket more than the one-day or Test cricket,” he said.
India’s board was initially cool on T20 cricket and only agreed to send a team to the first World T20 in South Africa in 2007 to secure the right to host the 2011 ODI World Cup.
However, the ecstatic reaction to India’s eventual victory prompted a rethink and the IPL’s birth.
Indian legend Kapil Dev said there was no point trying to hold back the tide and “the T20 format is the future.”
“There is no doubt that Test cricket is far superior, but then the public, young and old, are hooked on to this format. It does not matter whether I like it or not,” he wrote in India’s Mail Today newspaper.
Richardson said the ICC was trying to devise an international calendar that did not force players to choose between their country and a T20 money-spinner, acknowledging the need for a balance to ensure “they don’t cannibalize each other.”
In November last year, Australia hosted the first day/night Test, while the idea of a Test championship has long been debated to revive the format.
Indian commentator Ayaz Memon said it was wrong to lay Test cricket’s problems at T20’s door, saying the two shorter formats had been devised to reverse a fall in crowds.
Memon said the real challenge was to retain the interest of a younger generation “weaned on a lot of different formats.”
“Everybody wants to preserve Test cricket as of now, but you don’t know what may happen in the future,” he said.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
HSIEH MAKES QUARTERS: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens of Belgium won in the women’s doubles and face Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sofia Kenin of the US Top-ranked Iga Swiatek and US Open champion Coco Gauff were knocked out of the women’s singles at the Miami Open on Monday, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced in the women’s doubles. Swiatek lost to Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 6-2, hours after third seed Gauff fell in three sets to No. 23 Caroline Garcia 6-3, 1-6, 6-2. Alexandrova beat a top-ranked player for the first time and advanced to face Jessica Pegula, a 7-6 (7/1), 6-3 winner over Emma Navarro, in the quarter-finals. Alexandrova recorded her second win over Swiatek, following a 2021 victory in Melbourne. Swiatek had won their three matches since. “We played quite