Twenty 20 Blog

Sri Lankan batsman Tillakaratne Dilshan has won the Twenty20 International Performance of the Year award in recognition of his breezy 96 off 57 balls against West Indies in the semi-final of the 2009 World Twenty20 in England. Dilshan’s performance at The Oval included two sixes and 12 fours and helped steer his side into the finals of the tournament.

This is the second year the award has been given to recognise the most impressive performance by a player in Twenty20 internationals during the 12-month voting period, continuing to mark the advent of the shortest format of the game.

The award rounds off a good year of Twenty20 cricket for Dilshan who took the World Twenty20 by storm after showcasing his astonishing ‘Dilscoop’ - a flick-shot over his head - and also being named as Player of the Tournament, having scored 317 runs at 52.83.

According to the ICC Awards 25-member voting academy Dilshan’s effort was the most impressive in the voting period between August 13, 2008 to August 24, 2009.

His performance beat competition from West Indies’ Chris Gayle for his 88 off 50 balls against Australia, also during the 2009 World Twenty20 at The Oval; Umar Gul’s 5 for 6 for Pakistan against New Zealand in the same

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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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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Seamer Shane Bond picked up three wickets Friday to propel New Zealand to a 22-run win against Sri Lanka in its second and final Twenty20 match to give the tourists a 2-0 series victory.

The Black Caps made an imposing 170-4 batting first and then bowled tightly to restrict the hosts to just 148-8 off their 20 overs.

Jesse Ryder top-scored for New Zealand with 52 runs and shared an 84-run opening partnership with Brendon McCullum, who struck an aggressive 49.

Needing more than eight runs per over, Sri Lanka was soon in trouble losing three wickets for 11 runs.

Bond produced the first breakthrough with his fifth ball, having Tillakaratne Dilshan caught by Martin Guptill for just one run.

Mahela Udawatte was then out for a first-ball duck, caught by Neil Broom off seamer Kyle Mills and shortly afterward Sanath Jayasuriya miscued a pull shot to be caught by Ross Taylor off Mills for seven.

Mahela Jayawardene combined with his captain Kumar Sangakkara for 67 runs off 43 balls to give Sri Lanka some hope, but offspinner Nathan McCullum then picked up two wickets in his first over - the 11th of the innings - to put the tourists in control.

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New Zealand fought back superbly to win the opening Twenty20 international with Sri Lanka by three runs in Colombo.

The Sri Lankans were given a fine start by Tillakaratne Dilshan, who hit four fours in an over from Shane Bond, in his first international for 22 months.

Dilshan hammered eight fours and two sixes as Sri Lanka raced towards their target of 142, but Jacob Oram took a hat-trick to restrict them to 138-9.

Ross Taylor top-scored for the Kiwis, with five fours and a six in his 60.

After whitewashing the Kiwis 2-0 in the Test series, Sri Lanka looked set to take the lead in the limited overs matches.

However, New Zealand again showed their resilient qualities, having won the toss and chosen to bat and Sri Lanka’s middle order frailties were again highlighted.

Brendon McCullum sliced Lasith Malinga for six in the second over but five balls later he was out, dismissed at the

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Sri Lanka will be looking to extend their dominance over New Zealand in the shortest version of the game when the two teams clash in the first of two Twenty20 Internationals under lights at the R. Premadasa Stadium today.

The Sri Lanka team is in a buoyant mood presently following their back to back home Test series victories against Pakistan and New Zealand respectively.

However their performances in limited overs and Twenty20 cricket have been quite unpredictable although they were able to beat Pakistan 3-2 in the recent one day series.

Sri Lanka will be hoping to bring an end to their poor record at the R. Premadasa Stadium where they suffered two humiliating defeats and also lost the only Twenty20 International against Pakistan last month.

Their preparations for this game have been hampered somewhat following the absence of ace spinner Muttiah Muralitharan who has been rested with a groin injury which he sustained during the second and final Test match at the SSC ground in Maitland Place.

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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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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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