Opinion: The future for 20 20 world championships….
There is news today that WICB and Stanford 20 20 have agreed to a 5 year deal, during which time the 20 20 tournament will become part of WI calender. This is good because since it is agreed by WICB as part of the calender, they will try not to schedule anything for the national team that clashes with the tournament during this time. From a development perspective, this is good for the whole region, with the game going to new, non traditional west indies countries.
Meanwhile, BCCI is planning a 20 20 tournament on their own, with England, SA and Australia on board to hold their own leagues and eventually have a champions league. Pakistan is also interested in having their own league as a feeder to this champions league. Maybe Stanfrod 20 20 can be a feeder as well.
That looks like a more promising, and doable future for the 20 20 game. I think at this point in time, I do not see the 20 20 version to be so different from an ODI that there is a seperate championship, that too in the same year as the World Cup. Maybe the World Cup can be restricted to the ODI version, while 20 20 can move forward in the football like, club based, champions league format.
Btw…. India is big enough for 2 seperate leagues to exist, and both be the feeders to the champions league. MLB has both the American league and the National league, 2 seperate leagues running in parallel and then playing off in the end. So I dont think that ICL should be looked at as an adversary, especially if it is limiting itself to 20 20.
All these leagues coming up will also be very good for the promising players from associate countries, who can then play as professional cricketers, albiet in a short form of the game, without having to either ‘move on’ with their lives, or ….. do the easiest thing these days….. try to qualify for England.
mopase
Nasir M. Khan
Nishadh Rego
Nasir M. Khan\'s Cricket blog 
If all these countries can incorporate profitable 20/20 programmes into their schedule without messing up international tours then thats great news for Cricket.
For a number of reasons a lot of people think 20/20 should be primarily played on a domestic basis, hopefully these developments will ensure that.
Also, as you rightly point out, more 30 year old Dutch/Greek South African journeymen qualifying for England can only be a good thing 😉
Nasir…I think there’s a difference between the American and the Indian situation…When you consider the size of Ind’s economy vis a vis America’s, the number of intl games India play in addition to the non-stop cricket coverage on TV, expecting two parallel leagues of say 10 teams each to take off in India is rather too ambitious at the moment…Also, I don’t know how the quality of both these tournaments can be high enough to attract sufficient interest if the top players are distributed across both leagues…And, it’s not as if ALL of the World’s finest first class players are going to descend on these leagues; other countries will be having their own leagues too…
Having said that, these leagues are heaven’s gift to players from top Associates to avoid more Majid Haq kind of situations…maybe the ICC can also look to help setup similar leagues in countries like Ire, Sco, Nep, Afg, Mal, Ken or Ugan where either the economy is big enough (coupled with an existent cricket following) to lure a decent pool of FC players from Test nations or where interest for the game is sufficiently high to be able to sustain with local players…
Ram,
Any sort of cricket can compete with nothing :). Even though there is a full calender on Indian television, there are stil days and weeks when nothing happens. And those are the days when the local leagues can get good ratings. btw, I also think that people in Indian would rather watch a 20 20 domestic game than the second session of a secnd day’s play featuring New Zealand and South Africa. Or better still, what if the first innings is still happening and it is the 4th day of a test match? Would people rather watch a definite draw? or a domestic ICL/BCCI 20 20 league game?
I think chances are there that people may watch these games, but only time will tell.
Twenty20 is here to stay. ADD and ADHD sufferers will make it succeed.