I repeat what I have said before - T20 cricket, with reference to the great traditions of the game - is rubbish, and apart from the extra money that will be floating around, it will do absolutely nothing to enhance the quality of the game.

Batsmen (like the West Indians) who are already having trouble staying at the crease and building an innings will gain nothing from the wild and indiscriminate hitting necessary to succeed in this form of the game. The bowlers will be handed wickets on a golden platter rather than having to earn them...

I think one of the good things about T20 is that it will force the bowlers to improve. Think about it- batsmen trying to score off you at every opportunity, trying to hit you out of the park even- so the bowlers will be forced to bowl more accurately, pitching the ball up and putting it on the stumps- not to mention having to work on their vaariations. This improved accuracy and variation will transfer itself to other forms of the game, won't it? Over the last 5 years I think the quality of up-and-coming quicks has been better than before, with Asif from Pakistan, Sharma and others from India, Johnson from Australia, Broad from England, Steyn and Morkel from South Africa, and Taylor from the Windies. (I know what you're going to say- but he's better than Lawson, Best, Sanford etc, isn't he?) Do you think it's a coincidence that all these good young quicks have emerged since the introduction of T20?

As for wild and indiscriminate hitting- that's already a problem that existed before the mass-introduction of T20, and I can't see it really getting worse. But if you look at the two best batsmen in the IPL so far- Simon Katich and Shaun Marsh- it's interesting to note that they were two of the best batsmen in the Pura Cup in our summer. So I think it's certainly possible for the batsmen to separate the two forms of the game and be successful in both- it's just up to the individual batsman.

Bowlers improving? I wonder if you've noticed the final stages of a limited overs match where the fast bowlers deliver a barrage of full tosses which are met by almighty wild swings at them from the batsmen - I suppose the bowlers are trying to get some yorkers in, and fail miserably most of the time. It's simply a case of cricket at its worst - inferior bowling (full tosses) and inferior batting (wild swings), what we call 'blindshots' and 'vooping' in Trinidad.

Because the time is limited, batsmen (and bowlers) resort to all sorts of guesswork, particularly poorly executed shots brought on by the need to score quick runs - deliveries that should be played cautiously are quite often met with the wrong stroke, creating ugly and stupid-looking shots that usually reach the boundary through no positive effort of the batsman.

In the early stages of a limited overs game, I do agree that bowlers have to bowl properly to restrict scoring and get wickets, but this usually deteriorates into a fiasco nearing the end of the game, and even long before that.

As a matter of fact, I believe that the introduction of limited overs cricket as a regular international fixture has caused batsmen to treat the shorter game as the one to bat aggressively in, and the test match to take absolutely no chances in boring us to death, and it seems to me that batsmen nowadays score runs much slower in tests than some years ago - I haven't checked this as a stastistical fact - I should...

I really hate limited overs cricket...

Well, I've heard it said that low full-tosses are quite an effective weapon (if well-directed) for late in the innings, so I think that some of them are bound to be deliberate. And yes, I do believe that the stock of quicks rising through the ranks is better than what it was five years ago. Batsmen going after the bowlers will force them to bowl more accurately in all forms of the game- and that, to me, means putting the ball where the bowler wants it, even if it's not on a classical line and length.

I'd be highly surprised if this were so. Strike rates in Tests are on the up, and so are economy rates- ERs of over 3 are the norm now, whereas is used to be quite expensive, even as little as ten years ago. I guess Tests seem slower because the over rates are worse? Now you have to go into overtime to get in 90, while the fielding teams have drinks every time a wicket falls and the captains spend an age setting the field.

Ermm..yes! The two are completely unrelated; I would argue there's no correlation, let alone a causal relationship. Asif was a genuine world-class prospect long before he played any Twenty20 cricket; in any case, his involvement in T20 has been minimal, with poor results. Ishant Sharma played his first T20 matches after his Test debut. Similarly, Johnson and Steyn have their reputations based on their performance, seen in first-class and then Test cricket. All these good young quicks" you talk about have not benefited from T20 - their T20 exposure has been minimal, and instead of augmenting their reputations, it has even harmed them to limited extent.

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Conveniently erased the 400 England scored against The Convicts at Edgbaston on day 1 then.

Batting is so much slower now isn't it.

You certainly raise some good points (especially about Ishant Sharma) but nevertheless, I do think that T20 will cause bowlers to be more accurate. Umar Gul and RP Singh demonstated the benefits of accuracy in the World T20 last year, and contrary to fears, spinners haven't been made totally reduntant either.

As a matter of interest, I checked the T20 records of some of these bowlers and came up with the following:
Asif- 9 matches, 12 wickets, average 22.4, ER 7.7, BB 4-18.
Johnson- 7 matches, 10 wickets, average 17.2, ER 6.4, BB 3-22.
Steyn- 2 matches, 5 wickets, average 5.2, ER 3.7, BB 4-9.

Arguably the three most promising up-and-coming Test pace bowlers in the world, two of whom have very impressive records over a significant number of games, the third (Steyn) making a very good start, going at under 4 despite being the fastest of the three.

well too bad for u guys that the IPL is an instant success and has seen TRP's in india never witnessed before. So the IPL and T20 is here to stay and I frankly dont understand comments made by people who haven't even seen it. The quality of grounds with have improved, the pitches made in the earlier part of the tournament were pacy, bouncy. I should ask some of u guys take a look at the new D.Y.Patil stadium in Mumbai where the finals are supposed to be held. one look even on the TV screens tells u the stadium is world-class. ask the foriegn players who played there.
the last six odd weeks has had so many moments and has given me improbable battles like gilly vs warne vs mc grath. jayasurya and tendulkar opening together. yuvraj singh and dravid being booed by the mumbai crowd. the crowd in kolkatta erupting when shoaib akhtar took his magical 4 wickets against delhi. i have seen so many fringe players in india which is the best thing to happen to them with the lack of publicity of domestic tournaments. i have seen exciting games won in the last over. a couple of young kids getting the better of dilhara fernando, and jaysurya missing an easy run-out succumbing to pressure.
hit and giggle cricket u say??...u have to see the dazzling stroke play displayed by Shaun Marsh, Rohit Sharma and Gautam Gambhir and Sangakarra which shows u T20 is not only about brute force.bowlers learnt the art of picking wickets and keeping the batsmen quiet with variations of pace etc as the tournament moved on and this was reflected by average totals going down. I was a skeptic like some of u guys on how the idea would work, city based teams with players all over the world playing T20. i found myself cheering for gilly and symonds (who play for my city) smashing the bowlers from other teams. lotsa close games and cricket got better with the advent of IPL, lots of opportunities for peeps like watson and marsh and tons of young indians providing themselves that platform to get into national teams. so what if players make a buck and the franchisees have anyways realized that big names dont ensure good performance and i'm sure next year on they would be judicious on how to spend their money and would be better at spotting talent. and frankly i dont see an advent of club culture in cricket after IPL . the funniest thing i heard was Graeme Smith saying he has learnt to tolerate Aussies(Warne and Watson)... even vacationing with them in Goa...he says his perceptions have been altered and all this augers well for cricket

I don't understand your "too bad for you guys" comment. If it's a success in India and the Indians like it, fine. I read the UK newspapers every day, and it hardly rates a mention most days. It doesn't mean we wish the IPL any ill will. All it means is that - well, to be quite frank about it - we don't care about it. Horses for courses really: the appeal of the shorter forms of the game has long been higher in India than that of test cricket, and the reverse is probably true in England. There's room for both forms is my guess.

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If it gets as big a fan following as it did here in Australia this summer, the ECB might have to start thinking about staging a game at Wembley on a drop in pitch.