Watching Dimitri Mascarenhas clobber poor old Jeetan Patel over Auckland this morning I was reminded of just how far Twenty20 cricket had come.

The Hampshire all-rounder's four-six salvo in the 16th over may have looked like coming from the cow corner textbook of batting, but the truth is that Mascarenhas' hitting was as flowing and correct as Sir Garfield Sobers in his prime. OK. Patel is no Murali but in a pressure-cooker situation, 'our' Dimitri (despite his Antipodean accent) set the game alight.

I admit that when Twenty20 started I was not rushing to the circus. A cricket purist all my life and brought up  on no fours before lunch on the first day of a Roses match (no to mention a certain Geoffrey Boycott), I saw this wham-bam version of the game as a media plot to get more bums on seats, and if you'll excuse the language, bums who do not understand the finer points of the game.

'So easy is the game to follow, so good is its appeal across all sectors of society that, dare I suggest Twenty20 cricket is the new football?'


But I was wrong, and I am proud to admit I was. Twenty20 has single-handedly transformed cricket from a game people like me hogged for themselves, into a mass-spectator sport enjoyed by thousands at the grounds and millions at home. So easy is the game to follow, so good is its appeal across all sectors of society that, dare I suggest Twenty20 cricket is the new football?

Only it's better than football. It's four hours of instant gratification rolled into one evening of excitement and energy. On Friday it was the Aussie bowling and fielding which thrilled a near 90,000 MCG, today it was Mascarenhas and Kevin Pietersen. And now we hear that the ECB are pumping millions into English cricket grounds so that they can install lights ahead of next year's ICC Twenty20 championship.

The great thing about the game itself is that the only way to win is to play proper cricket with ball, bat and in the field. Sure, there may be the odd slog, but the combination of modern bats and powerful, natural hitters like Matthew Hayden and MS Dhoni enable the drives, cuts and pulls to hit the ropes. And unless you hit the line and length, you are going to be hit - and hard.

So what better way for aspiring cricketers to hone their skills than to use Twenty20 as a pilot study for ODIs and Tests? Let's face it, if you can field well at cover in a Twenty20 game, taking your position in a Test match is a cakewalk.

I know this may sound a tad controversial, but I think the ICC could actually think about phasing out ODIs which are fast losing their appeal among players and fans.  How about an annual Twenty20 championship made up of games played at the end of Test tours with a cumulative points tally to determine the overall winner. You could even have double headers on some days and there would clearly be no problem with filling seats. You only have to look at the disastrous ICC World Cup held in the Caribbean against the hugely successful Twenty20 championship held in South Africa to see where limited overs cricket should be heading.

This is raw cricket at its best, and I firmly believe that anyone who can play this version of the game well, can also cut the mustard at Test level.

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