Should T20 Cricket be played at international level?

With the introduction of twenty-over cricket at international level in 2005, One Day Internationals and Test Cricket have gradually lost their feel amongst the fans. People are in search of continuous entertainment and demand more T20 games
than ODI’s and tests.

Responding to the fans changing considerations, the International Cricket Council (ICC) have now made T20, an essential part of the full tour between different nations. This step received applause from a vast majority of fans and is running successfully.
People tend to come in numbers in support of their team and get three hours of massive entertainment.

But, in my opinion, T20 cricket is gradually destroying real meaning of the game and a time will come when the players won’t be remembered as one of the game’s greatest heroes like Kapil Dev, Sir Garfield Sobers, Wasim Akram and Sachin Tendulkar.

In a 20-over innings, a batsman doesn’t have time to get his eye in, and has to start hitting from the very first over. It deprives him of an opportunity to make name for himself and throws his wicket away if there are two or three dot balls.

This is not what cricket was all about some eight or nine years ago. You never really associate entertainment with a professional sport and ICC must take steps in order to avoid the game’s integrity.

With jam-packed stadiums, cheer leaders dancing and batsmen ruling, people would surely disagree with my opinion but the matter of the fact is, cricket is losing its harmony and we need to stand up in order to restore the game’s status.

Even the big name players like Ricky Ponting and Sachin Tendulkar have given up playing this sick-format in order to concentrate on the game’s more serious part i:e the tests and ODI’s.

Some recent comments from international players regarding the scrapping of ODI cricket in favour of shorter format tells, what impact 20-20 has made on the player’s life. They think that they could earn the same by playing less and ICC must surely stop this
kind of thinking amongst the players.

In my opinion, T20 has been a big hit worldwide, but I would like it to be played only at the domestic and club level. The tournaments like IPL and T20 Champions League must get an official status and players from around the world should make best use of
their hitting abilities in those games rather spoiling the image of ODI and test cricket.

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Posted by Taha Habib on Nov 28 2011. Filed under Opinion, Pakistan, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry