Push The Boundaries

Poor Sussex - after the nail biting climax to their season, clinching them the county championship, their open-top bus 'parade' looked absolutely pathetic. Perhaps they'd simply bundled their way on to a replacement bus service covering engineering works on Southern Railways and just hadn't told anyone.

By contrast, India whooped with delight after staking their claim to the first Twenty20 World Championships. Bright flashy kits with squad number and letters on the back, a cosmopolitan party audience, and the tension of a penalty shoot-out style 'bowl out' to decide a tied game - this is cricket turned sexy.

Traditionalists have been quick to castigate those who believe this is the sole way to open up cricket to the masses, and it's difficult not to agree with them - while the new format is designed to promote sharper bowling and spectacular drives to the boundaries, it leaves players open to silly mistakes and games can often be thrown through reckless batting.
The truth is that Twenty20 compliments ODI and full-on test cricket just fine, and that with time we'll come to appreciate the three more as disciplines of the sport rather than have each one alienated from the others.

On the other hand, I can't help but feel we're missing a trick with Twenty20. In five years time, Lords will open their doors to fans of the bow and arrow - Olympic archery will be held in the ground for the 2012 games. Now we have a discipline of cricket that can be completed in half a day, why not put the sport forward for the London games? It would seem apt to mix such a traditional sport with the celebration of sporting triumph - but enough of the cheesy stuff, for once we can add a genuine, globally-celebrated sport to the list of Olympic events when in the past, modern additions have been mickey mouse at best (ballroom dancing) to the downright daft (like the time when an entrant for Olympic Judo thought he was entering for Olympic Ludo).
Better still, Olympic Cricket would provide some fantastic opportunities for countries further down the medals table. US and Russia, for once, won't stand a chance even for the bronze.

We can but hope that Twenty20 will evolve to a point where it's played particular in youth competitions as a starting point for full-on test match cricket and a will run as a neat double-act for the 50-over one day structure.

Ashes? What Ashes?