Twenty20

I was among those who had given up on cricket after a series of events broke my trust in the honesty of the game. Then, our humiliating first round defeat in the World Cup convinced me that the game had come to an end, atleast for me. But then arrived Twenty20.

India beats Pakistan
And what a match it was last night! A nail-biting India-Pakistan encounter reminiscent of the famous battles between the two countries at Sharjah in the late '80s. And this was even better. In the 20-over a side, three-hour blitzkrieg, the match was clearly not over, as the cliche goes, until the last ball was bowled. 141 was hardly a target to protect, one thought. But as Pakistan struggled to keep its wickets, you sensed victory in sight. But the Pakistani middle order had other plans in mind. With some swashbuckling batting they brought down the asking target to just 12 runs in the last over. Two boundaries and three later, they dashed India's hopes and had to score just 1 run to scream victory off the last ball. Sreesanth ran in to deliver, with hope in his mind and his heart on his sleeve, the batsman found the fielder and the fielder found the stumps. Run-out. Tie. The first ever in a Twenty20 Indo-Pak match. Then began the bowl out. 5 bowlers from each side take turns to hit the unguarded stumps. India cruised through with all its 3 bowlers - Sehwag, Uthappa and Harbhajan bang on target. Pakistan's respected seamers failed to knock the stumps down even once.

So India won. But has cricket lost?
At first glance, I , like many of my friends, cringed at the idea of Twenty20 cricket. Many purists filled up newspaper columns to defend the purity of the gentleman's game being besmirched by a format for street-urchins. But then, this is tailor-made for television. Think about it. When was the last time you sat through an entire one-day match? This is just 3 hours. It's fast paced, exciting and puts purists' arguments of pitch, weather and wind and the typically Brit pre-match commentary irrelevant. So will ODI die? Of course not. Did Test cricket die because of the ODI? Frankly, we have seen some magnificent test matches quite recently in England. Net net, the game of cricket has evolved. The format may take away its gentle charm as we know it, but it infuses a fresh bubbly energy that is too good to resist. Cricket is back. Atleast for me!

(Picture Courtesy: The Hindu)