Ashes Poetry

It must have felt great to hold the trophy aloft at the home of cricket in front of a pretty full house – well done, England’s women, and well done, the England and Wales Cricket Board for having the vision to hold the men’s and women’s finals on the same day. Too often cricket is held up as fuddy-duddy-dom, yet was the FA Cup preceded by the Women’s FA Cup? Strange too, UK women’s soccer has more or less returned to amateur status when there is so much money in the game as a whole….

I like 20/20. In forty or fifty over games, there’s usually a sector around the innings’ mid-point when you may as well watch paint dry, while it’s still in the tin. Batters and bowlers almost make a tacit deal: three to four runs an over is more or less okay, and suddenly the crowd get thirsty for beer not just action.

Maybe the longer format of the shorter game is doomed. Instead of one innings each of forty or fifty overs, why not two each of twenty? It’d be like a test match in a day. The chance of redemption in the second innings; exactly how far ahead do you try to go if you get a first innings lead? In eighty overs the pitch may well start to wear …. if you fail to reach half your opponent’s tally first knock, would you be asked to follow on? Could you save those who didn’t bat for the second innings too? In other words, someone could bat twice. Imagine having to get a Dhoni, Afridi or Pietersen doubly out. Equally you could bank up your bowlers – eight out of twenty overs from Murali…  Not just ordering, the marshalling of resources, so integral to test match cricket, becomes critical.

Call it 20/20 squared