Truthful Tuesday | Let T20 cricket be the way it is

Since its inception in early 2003, T20 cricket has grown to become quite the monster. A format which was once seen as nothing more than a pastime, in just 17 years time, has now become the most globally acclaimed, popular and entertaining variant of the game. And it has its own reasons for the same: it is short, more friendly to the casual consumer and it basically sandwiches the best aspects of ‘entertainment’ in cricket - be it runs, wickets or drama - within a three-hour time span. It has perhaps seen a surge equivalent to that of smartphones in the last decade and a half. The viable nature of the format has meant that it has kept injecting fans with the dopamine they need - and that too in regular intervals, almost non-stop - to keep them hooked to it, which has seen the format grow and expand (the sport of cricket) like nothing else has, in the past. 

When England chased down 223 with almost an over to spare on Tuesday, there were more cries about how the bowlers - on a flat Centurion wicket - were taken to the cleaners than there were plaudits for the batsmen who got the job done; When India and West Indies scored 489 runs in 40 overs in Florida in 2016, there were jokes on how teams would be better off fielding bowling machines rather using actual bowlers; And, to cap it all of, every T20 match played in New Zealand is all but seen as a detestable handicap match with bowlers having both hands tied to the back owing to the short nature of the boundaries. But should we really be bothered or upset about T20 being an absurdly batsman-friendly format when clearly, the idea behind the whole concept was exactly meant to be that?

And for that, for the format to sustain and keep remaining the spectacle it is, compromises would need to be made and the balance would need to be constantly tilted. Because let’s face it: a casual consumer of the sport is bound to be attracted by fours and sixes more than hard-fought battles between bat and ball (at least in a 20-over game).  And that, incidentally, is the very motive of the format - to attract the casual viewer. And mind you, in no way is it wrong or in no way does it contaminate the sport; there are two other formats of the sport alive and kicking which purists can always turn to absorb the actual essence of the sport, which is on a completely different end of the spectrum compared to that of T20 cricket. 

Thus it is, in many ways, unnecessary to berate the format for what it is. Do you want a fascinating first hour where you want to see the ball jag around and trouble the batsmen? You’re more than welcome to switch - or stick - to Test cricket. Do you want a contest where you’d like to see a team that has had 15 overs of bad cricket make a measured come back and deliver a knockout punch? You’ve got ODI cricket for that.