South Africa v England T20 series underlined how good T20 cricket can be
The South Africa v England T20 series that ended on Sunday with a narrow England victory giving them a 2-1 series victory underlined just how exciting and gripping this form of cricket can be.
For the unaware T20 means a game of twenty overs a side with restrictions on fielding places and how many overs a bowler can deliver. The aim is to have it done in around 3 hours.
It has been a popular form of cricket around the world because it can be exciting and because it can be done in an evening after work.
Of course like everything commercial exploitation can wreck it.
The Australian Big Bash T20 tournament that goes on for ever as players come and go and the main interest seems to be how many sixes can be scored is a case in point. It is massively one sided in favour of the batsman and mostly very tedious.
But T20 can work when the more traditional battle between bat and ball reasserts itself which is what happened with the South Africa v England series.
It was high scoring and there were sixes but there were also wickets at key times to slow the scoring, hence the bowler as well as the batsman was central.
Often T20 can be one-sided and dull, although not here.
However in the year when the misconceived ‘100’ (100 ball cricket in 10, 10 ball overs) is introduced in England and Wales I’d rather have the T20 anyday.
I think 100 needs to judged after a few matches.
We have tickets at Lords for a match and I’m looking forward to it. 10 ball overs, if that’s what it is, could benefit bowlers as much as batsmen!