Twenty20

It sorta felt good but it felt kinda wrong too. An outburst of sweaty passion on a sweet summer evening. But when it was done, there was nothing. No afterglow, just a vague sense of emptiness.

Purple man wins an argument with pink man about whose uniform most resembles a jacaranda flower

You certainly didn’t feel like lighting a cigarette afterwards.

Boxing Day, and some genius with a marketing degree who likely earns twice the average wage decided they’d stage a Sydney Hobart Twenty20 cricket match in the evening because, y’know, there’s that Sydney Hobart boat thing happening too.

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  • Steve says:

    04:22pm | 28/12/12

    All sport is meaningless. A game that you can play for 4/5 days (Test Cricket) and not get a result is just stupid. After all that wasted time and energy, all the money that went into paying groundstaff, running a stadium, paying players not to mention multi million dollar sponsorships… Read more »

  • Phil says:

    04:14pm | 28/12/12

    Yes, twenty20 is pretty meaningless, but once in a while someone does something so spectacular that I find myself fantasizing about it to keep myself awake during meaningful Test matches for years into the future.  So, no link to sex at all there (just in case my wife is reading…) Read more »

 

Two bizarre things happened in sport this week. First Novak Djokovic bought the entire Serbian supply of donkey cheese. Then if that wasn’t weird enough, a Twenty20 cricket tournament broke out in the middle of the Test cricket season.

Missed… the batsman and keeper follow the lead of the people who programmed the schedule this summer. Pic: Getty Images

The Big Bash League started on the weekend, with Shane Warne’s form and crowds both way below expectations. Warney probably flopped because it’s a little late in his career, but the crowds failed because the tournament is much too early.

The cricket calendar is upside down this summer, due mainly to South Africa’s desire to play at home on Boxing Day. So what happened was, we hosted them early, then found ourselves with a two week gap between the third Test in Perth and the start of the Sri Lanka series.

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  • Mouse says:

    05:03pm | 12/12/12

    sunny. SKUNK???? Where in heaven’s name did you get that info?  Have you not heard about the Aardvark cheese coming out of Tanzania? Being the Connoisseur of all good cheeses that I am, I will let you in on this new industry in the Lake Manyara district. Aardvark cheese is… Read more »

  • Mouse says:

    04:30pm | 12/12/12

    OK my dearest Philosopher, I didn’t mean to turn it into a “Et tu Brute?” moment, so since you put milk out for the kitty, you are forgiven…  ;o) Read more »

 

It’s time Australia started taking Twenty20 cricket seriously. We begin our ICC World Twenty20 campaign this week ranked ninth, wedged between Bangladesh and Ireland on the official ICC rankings. We meet Ireland first up and they could very well beat us.

Australian players Matt Wade and Shane Watson watch Kiwi Nathan McCullum closely to see if they can pick up a much-needed T20 tip or two

It has become nothing short of treasonous in recent years to admit you enjoy watching T20 cricket, let alone to suggest that Australia should dedicate more resources to the super-abbreviated form of the game. But that’s exactly what we should do. T20 cricket at the international level should be given more primacy, more credence and more money.

At the moment, T20 is an ever-growing cash cow for Cricket Australia. But the domestic Big Bash league gets all the marketing money, while the national team is almost an afterthought. The T20 squad’s two week camp in the lead-up to this major ICC-sanctioned tournament was the first time we’ve ever had a proper build-up to a major T20 tournament. No wonder we’re easybeats at international level.

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  • esteban says:

    06:27pm | 19/09/12

    Vids. Still smarting over the 5 nil last year? If you read the comments above there is no blame to India for Australia’s poor performance at T20 relative to test and ODI. There is however a recognition that India is the capital of T20 and if India loses interest in… Read more »

  • stephen says:

    05:23pm | 19/09/12

    If the Oz 20twenty players dressed like our beach volleyballers, then I reckon the girls in the stands might have a show on their hands. Then the whole show can get a gig at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where it belongs. Read more »

 

I went to the KFC T20 Big Bash League game at the Sydney Cricket Ground in character. My self-assigned role was to play the sporting curmudgeon, a cricket connoisseur abhorring the form of the game designed for people who don’t like cricket, and left-wing romantic appalled by the abominations of corporate consumption capitalism at its most bone-headedly tasteless.

Even though the author says he went to the Sydney Sixers, not the Sydney Thunder, we still reckon that's him holding the green lightning bolt.

Attending my first live Twenty20 event was an exercise in leisure and education, meaning that I was looking for fun but brought my notepad along.

Following the pedestrian flow through Surry Hills to Moore Park and breathing humid evening air spiced with vehicle and restaurant emissions, the collective feeling was unmistakeably that of summer carnival.

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  • Sofia says:

    10:32am | 08/02/12

    I still can’t utndrseand why Ravindra Jadeja was selected. He was unable to accelarate even in the IPL matches and was one of the main contributors to Rajasthan Royals’ failures.Yesterday he just continued from where he left off. He slowed down India’s chase and one of the main reasons why… Read more »

  • Chris says:

    10:10am | 08/02/12

    396Just one more great way to save lots of inomce upon auto tires is always to employ payless coupon codes. You can choose a lot of discount coupons regarding different elements. Youâ??ll find inexpensive exhaust coupon codes and affordable auto deals while successfully which can be employed for car repairs.… Read more »

 

Cricket’s Big Bash domestic T20 league kicked off on the weekend, and if you’ll excuse the pun, the thing was a smashing success.

Warner 1, Warne 0

TV ratings were huge, with over 900,000 tuning in to the match between Shane Warne’s Melbourne Stars and Dave Warner’s Sydney Thunder. That’s the fourth highest-rating show ever on Australian Pay TV.

OK, so the bums-on-seats weren’t as numerous as some predicted, but with people still working and using the precious evening hours to go Christmas shopping, that was to be expected. Just wait till January.

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  • steve says:

    08:10pm | 21/12/11

    What about the commentary ? All of a sudden , all of a sudden , all of a sudden , all of a sudden. The phrase is driving me nuts. Allan Border , great cricketer ,possibly the most droll commentator of all time. And re Mark Waugh , is he… Read more »

  • AJL says:

    01:59pm | 21/12/11

    T20 bores me.  It’s just so damn repetitive and predictable. Onto more important things, like how the hell Haddin is allowed within 100m of the Test team while he seems to think that 5/18 in a Test is time to play like a T20?  Or hoping that India cop a… Read more »

 

Cricket is the new footy. That’s the implicit message from Cricket Australia, who yesterday expanded the Big Bash state Twenty20 competition to eight teams, including two each from Sydney and Melbourne.

The sun sets on cricket's old era at the Big bash final. Pic: Getty Images

Traditionalists, of course, are spitting the kind of bland old-fashioned flavourless chips they always spit when anything changes in their goldfish bowl.

But they can no more stem the tide of Twenty20 cricket than they can force people to the opera en masse instead of to the iTunes store to buy the latest Lady Gaga “song”. And that’s not agenda pushing. That’s fact.

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  • preiswerturlaub.net says:

    07:16am | 23/02/11

    Probably Leave,wave soil as evidence patient consumer depend every customer equal match justice prevent paint personal article holiday practice scene concern university window social hence they council tend traditional room sit knee reader result following farmer those thought ignore class replace male invite offer useful tiny research or director sir… Read more »

  • n_dude says:

    04:08pm | 10/02/11

    T20 is like a Maccas meal. It fills you up quickly but does not satisfy you. On the other hand Test cricket is like a degustation meal at a 3 hat restaurant. It not only fills you up, but it leaves you satisfied. Read more »

 

Herald Sun golf reporter, Mark Hayes, opened his Monday piece on Scott Laycock’s win in the inaugural Surf Coast Knockout, with the statement that it occurred “on a day that stands to change the face of Australian Golf”.

Winner! Pic: Mike Dugdale

He was referring to the world first knockout golf format. The championship was decided by three rounds of stroke play. On the fourth and final day the top 32 players competed in a series of six hole matches in a knockout draw to determine the winner.

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  • billigepauschalreisen.net says:

    12:30pm | 18/02/11

    Just North,quality heavy chance certainly technology welcome poor wood allow whole flight culture back circle estimate social train such easy band begin mouth joint with join confidence critical wood both financial will company front via admit separate available supply target aircraft similar chair operate error drop but shoot carry express… Read more »

  • CCC says:

    02:42pm | 30/01/11

    would be great to see some of the mini-games from TigerWoods Golf on the Xbox/Wii/PS be translated to the course.  Targets, battle golf (if win hole can remove 1 club from opponents bag), alternate shot.. Read more »

 

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