Trevor Chesterfield on Cricketnext.com

What experts have to say

http://www.cricketnext.com/news/t20-is-really-a-gaudy-imitation/27009-16-single.html

As we have already read in copious space devoted to the event in newsprint and websites, there are those obtuse media types who have been seduced by the T20 mimicry of the genuine article.
They seem to believe all that fatuous PR hype, its kitsch presentation, and the bawdy facile image of so-called new age batting styles and weird efforts to score runs.
In this case Kevin Pietersen has ended up with more egg on his face than usual as he attempted one reverse slog sweep too many at Kingsmead against New Zealand. He really should have learnt to keep his legs together than attempt such an ineffectual effort to hit another boundary.
All this has me firmly supporting Daniel Vettori's view after the Kiwi skipper gave the T20 version of the game a genuine raspberry. And as a sport it comes about as close as you will find to bankrupting the basic format of the game.
In this it possibly approaches that scam of an event known to some as WWF that some infantile minded types watch and believe is genuine and not fraudulent pantomime.
But that is America for you. They are suckers for the showy clownish garbage that passes as entertainment that the T20 converts seem to enjoy.
After all, what can you expect of a nation that has its media full of some insignificant gridiron footballer's injury and suggesting that it is a catastrophe while buried on inside pages is news how 500 have died in a week in suicide bombs in the war that Bush and Blair foisted on their citizens.
Those two unscrupulous, conniving politicians used the same perverted PR tricks and tactics that have also conned a public into believing how T20 is good for the game. About the only thing it is good for is fatting bank balances.
Already the yobbo elements were noticeable at the county domestic Twenty20 in England this year, and at some stage this football type mentality is going to creep its loutish way into the international arena while there is still decent cricket being played.
It is easy to agree with Vettori's comments about the future of T20 and disagree with former England captain Michael Atherton about his fears for the future of the game. Atherton's concern is that administrators, conned into the golden egg syndrome, will pack itineraries with more of this type of nonsense.
Indian batsman Robin Uthappa when asked his opinion was as equally forthright as Vettori, and to an extent Ricky Ponting, who agree while it has a place, they prefer the traditional game of Tests and the 50 over format. Interestingly, when a close friend who had seen the county Twenty/20 in England, admitted boredom at the sameness of the way the game was played, it confirmed that while it may have a future, it is not the future.
Learning how, borrowing Vettori's comment, to landscape the game into a tour programme is important. Little wonder the deep-thinking Vettori was at odds with New Zealand Cricket's decision to scrap a Test and play two Twenty/20s instead during last year's Sri Lanka tour.
Sure there is a way to play T20 as there is the other (50 overs) slog. Generally the basics have been used in batting and bowling and there have been some good cricket, but this is only in patches.
As with the format, Vettori's comment about having to think on your feet is nothing new. Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene said something similar in a pre-tournament interview. There are also times when the gameplan focus changes so rapidly, the field placings need continual adjustment and bowling strategies altered.
In the late 1950s the T20 format was used as part of an evening social during the long summer twilight in far off Invercargill, New Zealand, and it is also played in the Bolton Leagues in Lancashire of an evening. But now that it has been transformed into the international arena it was in need of tawdry gimmicks as a public seller to help it survive.
It is amazing how, amid this T20 circus, forgotten by some is how two years ago there was the tense excitement of The Ashes and England beating Australia. It captured the imagination of the public in England and elsewhere and underlined the importance of good Test cricket. The International Cricket Council needs such examples of the game to remind the administrators that while they are seduced by the T20 slogs, there is nothing to compare with the traditional format.