Twenty 20 Blog

Rejuvinated by his recent limited-overs form, Shahid Afridi has set his sights on helping Pakistan retain their World Twenty20 title in the third edition of the tournament, to be held in the Caribbean next April. Afridi was named Twenty20 captain after Younis Khan retired from the format after leading Pakistan to the World Twenty20 title in June and has continued to excel as a match-winning allrounder.

Afridi was instrumental in this summer’s triumph, turning in Man-of-the-Match performances in both the semi final and the final. “I am becoming more and more responsible with my batting,” Afridi told AFP. “I want to help my team win the World Twenty20 again next year and then the bigger prize in the World Cup in two years time. and

“Being the captain I have to do planning for the World Twenty20 because I want to win it once again, for my team, for my country and for my people who get inspired with our wins. There is no cricket back home so it is important that we keep winning and motivate the youth to take up the game which will keep the interest alive in our country.”

The last five years have been the most productive of Afridi’s career, where despite brief patches of indifference, he has established himself as a fixture in Pakistan’s limited-overs set-up. His form has been particularly good this year, with impressive performances in the ODI series and Twenty20 against Australia in Dubai in May, his critical role in leading Pakistan to the World Twenty20 title, and now in the first ODI against New Zealand in Abu Dhabi.

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Pakistan’s cricket board is planning a bid to host the 2014 Twenty20 World Cup in the hope that the security situation in the country improves over the next five years, local media reported on Monday.

“Hopefully by that time the conditions to host international events would be ideal in our country,” Pakistan Cricket Board chief Ijaz Butt told The News from South Africa, where the national team is contesting the Champions Trophy.

The PCB’s top official is scheduled to hold meetings with officials of other cricket boards to “muster their support” while in South Africa, The News reported.

Pakistan lost the rights to host the Champions Trophy last year due to concerns expressed by leading foreign teams. The tournament was postponed by 12 months and moved to South Africa.

Pakistan was also stripped of its rights as co-host of the 2011 World Cup following a terror attack on the Sri Lanka test team earlier this year. It will share revenue with India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh but will not host any of the matches in international cricket’s leading limited-overs tournament.

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Thrilling contests will be the order of the day at the Champions Trophy, especially following a raging debate over the future of one-day cricket.

The 11-year-old tournament may have witnessed many nail-biting matches, but is still competing with the 50-over World Cup and Twenty20 World Championships for popularity and glamour.

Wisden described the 2006 edition — held just five months before the World Cup — as “the unwanted stepchild of international cricket”, while Matthew Hayden recently suggested the tournament be scrapped.

“Playing the World Twenty20 every other year is too much. And why have the Champions Trophy when you’ve already got a 50-over World Cup?” former Australian batsman Hayden wrote in a newspaper column.

The biennial tournament, a brainchild of former International Cricket Council (ICC) chief Jagmohan Dalmiya, has already had more than its fair share of criticism since it was launched in 1998 in Dhaka.

The event was known as ICC Knock-Out at Dhaka and at Nairobi two years later, but its format left a lot to be desired as just one bad match sent the favourites home, like Australia.

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Captain Younus Khan believes Pakistan can build on their World Twenty20 success when they vie for an elusive Champions Trophy title in South Africa.

Pakistan, who have never won or played in the final of the Champions Trophy since its inception in 1998, face a second-string West Indies in their opening Group A match before crucial games against India and Australia.

Younus, who led Pakistan to the World Twenty20 title in England in June, hopes his team can emulate that feat in one-day cricket.

“Our World Twenty20 win has given us confidence and I think we can build on that success in the Champions Trophy. Maybe there is a difference of overs, but the style remains the same and now a team can chase 350-plus,” said Younus.

Pakistan have lost their last three one-day series — the first against Sri Lanka at home which resulted in Younus taking over from Shoaib Malik — but Younus said the losses have not dampened spirits.

“The way we lost the one-day series in Sri Lanka, losing the first three matches and then winning the last two with big margins proved that we have the capability to win when we play to our potential.

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Andrew Flintoff’s upcoming retirement has provoked cynical rumblings across the land as to the motives of England’s talisman. In an age where money talks most, many feel that Flintoff’s focus has been drawn from his country to the millions he can earn if fully fit and available for next year’s IPL. This may well be the case and if so who can blame him after an injury-ravaged 4 years which has seen him spend more time on the operating table than on a cricket field. Aussie stars Hayden and Gilchrist have already quit the international arena for domestic Twenty20 and the promise of a few more big paydays on the sub-continent.

However while these players were coming to the end of glittering international careers anyway (in Flintoff’s case it was becoming a question of which tendon would fail next) there’s a worrying line of thought that players might start to quit at an earlier age to cash on lucrative domestic tournaments and foreign leagues.

Twenty20 $s vs Test cricket prestige

It becomes a case of financial reward against the prestige of Test cricket. Which players are prepared to sacrifice the

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Flamboyant Pakistani all-rounder Shahid Afridi is a miffed man, who believes the team did not get enough time to celebrate their Twenty20 World Cup triumph.

Afridi, who skipped the ongoing Test series against Sri Lanka, said the feeling of winning the Twenty20 World Cup had just started to sink in when the cricketers left for the tour.

“The team should have had at least a month or so to enjoy the taste of victory. There should have been given enough time to enjoy the celebrations. It is unfortunate they got no time,” Afridi said.

According to him, the Pakistani players struggled to quickly shift to the Test mode in Sri Lanka and that explained their struggle there.

“It is upto the players to do their best to give good performances in Sri Lanka but I maintain it is unfair on them that they got little time to rest and prepare for the Sri Lankan tour,” he said.

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How about a Twenty20 Test match? Sounds odd but who knows, it could become a reality in future.

As the ICC mulls on ways to save Test cricket from the Twenty20 onslaught, a new format of a two innings Twenty20 match is slowly gaining momentum.

And many former players are not averse to the idea though some of them question whether it would suit the needs of spectators, who have lapped up the slam-bang version for its quick results.

The new format has been mooted by cricket experts and broadly envisages a Twenty20 match in two innings of 20 overs each. In other words, the match will have four innings like in Tests but would be restricted to a total of 80 overs (40 for each team in two innings).

The idea of two innings mainly stems from the fact that it would give an opportunity to top players, who fail in the opening essay to make amends in the second innings.

Moreover, the proposal has innovations like each team would be allowed to make two substitutions in the second

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Fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar has said he considered suing the Pakistan cricket management for revealing, in a public statement, the skin ailment that forced him to miss last month’s World Twenty20. The PCB’s statement on his fitness ahead of the tournament in England said Akhtar had been diagnosed with genital viral warts; he was subsequently removed from the squad.

“I kept quiet because I have a central contract and didn’t want to offend the PCB, but I could have sued the Pakistan team management,” Akhtar said in a TV programme on Express News. “I didn’t want the Pakistan team to suffer because my news is published all over the world.”

Akhtar belongs to category A of the PCB’s centrally contracted players, who are barred from openly criticising the cricket board’s decisions.

The injury-prone fast bowler last played a Test in 2007, against India, before he was sidelined for 14 months with fitness and disciplinary problems. He made two unimpressive comebacks to international cricket this year - in the one-day series at home against Sri Lanka, and the five ODIs and lone Twenty20 against Australia in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Akhtar, however, believes he can still get back to his best.

“There’s still three-four good years left in me,” he said. “I am the fastest bowler in history and it’s not possible for everyone to bowl at 150 (kph).”

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England have been grouped with hosts West Indies and one qualifier in the World Twenty20 tournament in 2010.

The West Indies, who knocked England out of this year’s tournament, will open the competition on 30 April.

Holders Pakistan face Australia and Bangladesh, with Sri Lanka pooled against New Zealand and Zimbabwe.

India take on South Africa and another qualifier, with the tournament, staged in St Lucia, St Kitts, Barbados and Guyana, set to finish on 16 May.

Chris Gayle’s West Indies defeated England at the Super Eight stage in this year’s Twenty20, winning a match in which the winner would qualify from their group.

In a rain-affected contest, an unbeaten partnership of 37 between Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan saw the Windies home.

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When cricket historians look back in years to come they may well decide that 2009 was the year that the Twenty20 format came of age. They will say this was the year when the unruly offspring joined the accepted family of cricket’s formats.

Perhaps not regarded as the ultimate test of a team’s ability, that will surely always be the five-match five-day Test series, but still a valid and recognised method of sorting out the cricketing men from the boys.

Why 2009? You may ask. Well two reasons. First the IPL was moved from its natural home in India due to security reasons for its second season prompting a multitude of questions.

Could the organisers and the South Africans hosts put on the event at such short notice? Yes, they could. Would it be as exciting as the inaugural season? Yes. Would the passion of the crowds transfer to South Africa? Would the playing standards reach the same levels? Would the best in the world still be queuing up to appear? Yes, yes and yes.

But there was one important question that was answered no. Would it surpass and replace international cricket?

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