After a well-contested final, the Indians came out winners of the ICC Twenty20. Without any expectations the team, with a fair share of luck and hard work, prevailed.

The current situation is good for the Indian management - especially when Dilip Vengsarkar had stated that he did not find any quality bench strength in India. The likes of Rohit Sharma, Manoj Tiwary do have a chance in the other forms of cricket as well. The recent India A matches have shown glimpses of talent that the management will do well to consider  -  V YoMahesh, Subramanian Badrinath, Mohammed Kaif, Suresh Raina and Parthiv Patel. Some of them have been given a 'D' contract - a good start that had been missing for many years. Now 33 players have been given contracts. Is it because of the ICL threat? Maybe.

Will there be specialist players in the Twenty20 version? Probably. India have Joginder Sharma and Yusuf Pathan who can be a handful in the shortest version of the game, but would struggle in the 50-over form. There are other examples in other teams who would be really useful in the 20-over game - probably making a name in the 20s version before converting to the longer form. VVS Laxman and Anil Kumble comes to mind. They play better in the longest version (Tests). Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid will definitely not play in the shortest format, thereby leaving slots to be occupied by other players from the bench.

'Fans could be bored watching a full ODI match, such was the impact of Twenty20 cricket'

So, where does Twenty20 stand alongside ODI and Test cricket? The ICC has mandated that each team should not play more than seven Twenty20 matches in a year - this means that only the ICC can make a financial killing of this type of cricket. One can see a 'Champions' version of Twenty20 on the lines of the Champions Trophy in ODIs.

And some of the features of Twenty20 are being phased into the ODI format - like the free-hit rule. Twenty20 can act as an experimental zone where the ICC can try out new rules before introducing them into the longer versions of the game. The teams did not have any problems bowling 20 overs in 75 minutes which means that 3.5 hours in ODIs for 50 overs is probably on the longer side.

Fans could be bored watching a full ODI match, such was the impact of Twenty20 cricket. The marketing brain behind this concept must have really spent time analysing the behavior pattern of spectators and TV viewers across ages to have hit upon the right idea. The Asian Games Committee have already included cricket in its schedule (Twenty20 version) which can only be good for the globalisation of the game.