2oceansvibe’s sports columnist, Sean Wilson, considers the merits of the shortened, shortened game, ahead of the upcoming T20 World Cup that gets underway next week.

If T20 cricket is a joke, then 11-over cricket is a joke I don’t get.

We’ve now come to the end of the three-game T20 series between England and South Africa that was supposed to act as ample preparation for the T20 World Cup that starts next week. We were supposed to learn all we needed to know to go forward. Well, with two of the three games being rain-reduced, all we learned is that further bastardisation of this format is an awful sight, even for those who have Twenty20 vision.

So when rain causes a big delay to the start of the shortened shortened version of the game, the ICC think they’ll appease the public by shortening it some more. After all, if you tuned in to watch a 20-over game, you’ll surely be satisfied with a nine-over slogathon, right?

Cricket fans, this is not a state of affairs where we just sit back, shake our heads and let this “cricket” take us later into the night than we bargained for. Assuming we prefer nine-over cricket to nothing at all is an insult to the game as well as our attention spans.

It’s weird to see that the ICC has decided on some cut-off point for what constitutes a match. The second T20 taught us that anything less than five overs is not a fair enough sample of cricket to determine a winner. In other words, to determine a bona fide result, there is enough match narrative in five overs.

Is 4,1 overs enough? No. Now you just talkin’ crazy.

Come now, ICC. If you’re going to butcher limited overs cricket to such an extent, why bother with a cut-off point? Just go the whole hog. There’s no reason why four-over cricket should be treated with any less respect than the nine or 11 over stuff.

We can all see the future of the game. one over each. A different bowler for each ball (okay, maybe five bowlers and one is allowed to bowl two balls). The bowling powerplay takes place during the first two balls, and the batting powerplay during the last two balls.

Yes, I know that that will result in an inevitable two-ball lull during the middle of the innings where batsmen are going to be yawningly content with stroking fours as opposed to slapping sixes. We’ll just have to wait and see what innovations the ICC will come up with to accommodate our McDonaldised attention spans.

Since the goal seems to be to cram as many competitions as we can into a year, imagine how joyous the fixture list people will be when you give them a format that allows them to have at least three world cups in an afternoon? The sponsorship response will go through the roof. In fact, screw the cricket. Just award the game to whoever wins the toss.

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