Opinion: Could T20 evolve into a different sport?

The debate about whether the batter-dominated T20 format is healthy for the game is raging. The IPL has thrown up some massive totals, including one between the Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Sunrisers Hyderabad where 549 runs were scored.

Speaking to The Cricket Monthly, Ricky Ponting said: “I didn’t think a 300 score would ever be possible, but it looks like it’s going to be. With this impact player rule as well, it’s allowing more freedom to batters. They’re going out there and just going from ball one. There’s no, you know, take five, six balls to get in and get set. It’s go out and hit from ball one.”

It’s more likely than not that we’ll see a score of 300 soon. At one stage 150 was considered a winning total. But the game, particularly batting, has evolved rapidly, so much so that it is only recognisable as traditional cricket in minor ways.

Let me explain.

I’ve recently started playing padel. People who’ve only had a fleeting introduction to the sport often describe it as “like tennis”.

It undoubtedly has a tennis foundation insomuch as the scoring system is the same, stroke techniques are similar, and it is played on a smaller version of a tennis court, using a ball similar in constitution to a tennis ball.

But that’s pretty much where the similarities end. The court is enclosed by a hybrid of glass and fencing, meaning the ball is in play for longer periods. Control, more so than power, is rewarded in ways that tennis’ tactical framework doesn’t promote. Furthermore, you only play padel in pairs, each partner’s unique strengths determining which side of the court they play on. You strike with shorter, punchier strokes, differentiating it from tennis’ longer hitting arcs.

I could spend the rest of this piece detailing these differences, but you get the picture. So while padel has historical roots in tennis, the two are completely different codes demanding completely different things – tactically, technically and in terms of temperament – from participants.

This is how I view T20, which started as a shorter version of ODI cricket but is evolving into a different code over its nearly 20-year history.

In the beginning, batters used traditional techniques, employed in a more aggressive manner than in ODI cricket. Those techniques, especially among T20’s elite batters, have since evolved into a standalone discipline.

Batting training for T20 has become so niche, so focused and granular, and so far removed from methods employed in ODI cricket, that any links are nearing negligible.

Indeed, a growing trend globally is power-hitting academies that train their attention on T20 cricket. Their primary goal is to give young batters the tools to build a T20 career. Any benefits to their longer-format games are simply a by-product, not a focus of these academies.

Bowling’s evolution has happened more slowly, but it is happening. The skill set of an elite T20 bowler 20 years ago versus what the game’s best are capable of now is incomparable. Undoubtedly, T20, especially on lifeless decks in the subcontinent, is a batter’s game. But the prevailing narrative that bowlers are bystanders is flawed.

In the earlier referenced interview, Ponting confirmed this: “These [T20] tournaments used to be won on really good, strong defensive bowling units. And it might still well be, because if you do have the best bowling attack that’s able to restrict some of this manic batting that’s happening, then you might go a long way to winning.”

So, highly skilled bowlers can and do still win T20 matches, and the base of skilled T20 bowlers will only broaden as new dimensions of the craft are explored and mastered. Currently, the craft looks familiar in its execution, but in time, like batting, it will morph into something that only has tenuous links to cricket’s version of the discipline.

In the same way that, initially, many tennis players became padel players, so too will increasingly more cricket players become T2o players. Eventually tennis no longer became a gateway to padel, with the latter instead having dedicated disciples, so too will cricket players and T20 players be two different categories of sportspeople.

While T20 cricket has significantly improved Test and ODI cricket, those formats have given T20 very little. They can’t. They are fundamentally different. Notably, the T20 format showcases talent, more so than temperament. Often expressed through individual contributions, talent wins a high percentage of T20s. But talent alone can’t win you Test matches. This quality must be combined with granite temperament, excellent technique, physical fitness and cricket IQ, among other qualities, for individuals to be consistently successful in Test cricket and many ODIs.

I’ve seen T20’s philosophy transform the game at a grassroots level. Most kids in club cricket can no longer relate to you explaining the principles of building an innings or earning the right to play expansively by grafting conservatively early in your innings. They scoff at technical advice that promotes sound defence, preferring to practice and play a range of high-risk strokes to counter tight bowling.

Only a handful of them have an appreciation for Test cricket. Fewer still watch it. Making provincial sides to play timed, or limited-overs cricket used to be the focus of talented kids in the generation I grew up in. Today, getting drafted by a local T20 team represents the pinnacle. They speak of the best players in those tournaments in the same way my generation spoke of the best players at the Nuffield Week, or Coke Week (now Khaya Majola Week).

“There’s no doubt the younger generation, bred on big hitting and high scoring in T20 cricket, embrace the IPL,” said Ian Chappell in his Cricinfo column. “Then there’s the older generation, who have grown up with batting artistry and quality bowling spells and are often bewildered by segments of the modern game. Those are facts of life. As the IPL (and other administrations) consider the bottom line critical, then big hitting and thrilling chases, while they continue to draw large crowds, will remain as attractions of the game.”

I don’t see the balance of interest being corrected at all. Test cricket appeals to purists, while ODI cricket is stale and faces an uncertain future.

I foresee T20 cricket continuing to evolve, with law amendments, and advances in techniques fundamentally changing the shape and substance of the format.

I can see a T20 future where restrictions around bats are waived (cue the return of Ponting’s graphite-coated bat that was banned in the early 2000s), many batters mastering a weak-hand stance and rotating between batting an innings left-handed and right-handed, and bowlers doing the same thing.

I expect a dedicated T20 ball that is manufactured using modern methods and materials. Bowlers will be the primary beneficiaries, closing the gap in a contest that is heavily weighted in favour of batters.

I expect to see dedicated T20 pitches, which are created using AI-generated preparation techniques, resulting in more uniform surfaces that are lab-grown, eliminating the reliance on groundstaff’s skills, and climate.

I expect technology to be commonplace, with all participants in a game being allowed to use vision-enhancing glasses that also feed you real-time information like (for batters) the ball’s trajectory, seam position, and revolutions applied. Or (for fielders) the ball’s expected flight path, wind direction, speed of arrival, optimal catching style and hand position, etc.

I see changes to the scoring system, with six no longer being the highest number of runs achievable with a single stroke. Instead, batters could score an eight for a hit between 80m and 90m, and a 10 for hits longer than 90m.

In short, I see a future where T20 is no longer considered cricket. It will be a different code, rendering the present-day debates about its impact on the game redundant.

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