What is "proper cricket"? Just because you believe Test Matches to be proper cricket doesn't mean it is so. Is village cricket, played around the country often over 40 or 50 overs proper cricket? What about twenty overs a-side evening cricket? Is that any less proper than a Five Day Test?

There's far to much "snobbishness" surrounding this. Just because it's shorter and gets a result every time does not make it any less important. Too many people seem to be forgetting that Test cricket would have dies in the seventies were it not for the advent of the Limited Overs Internationals. Too many people don't like change, however they're happy to drive in motor cars and use personal computers because it suits them to do so. Change happens, live with it. Cricket will change, it has to if it is to survive.

Soccer Englands national sport has not really changed since the war.

The game is still played over a period of 90 minutes, the same with Golf - so why should cricket be any different?.

Also the World evolving for people to be able to use a PC, or drive a car does not automaticaly mean that cricket should change also.

As for one day cricket being the games saviour, I doubt that very much - in lots of ways for instance shot selection one day cricket has been bad for the game.

With respect NE if you believe that the spectators that go to watch 20/20 would watch Test cricket, then I believe you are mistaken, so really it does nothing for the broader game.

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Ern

8 as opposed to 10 overs per day does nothing to reduce wear and tear.

Any bowler not fit enough to handle 10 overs in one day, which are heardly ever all in one go is not fit.

My definition relates entirely to the existence of a genuine contest between bat and ball: I see no reason why that should not exist over any length of game or at any level. I certainly agree that ODI cricket can involve a genuine contest between bat and ball: such contests might be rare... but they occur.

In principle you could have a Twenty20 that's "proper cricket"... but the truncated format does skew things in favour of batsmen: as I see it, a Twenty20 wicket has to be a LOT more lively than a Test wicket in order to compensate.

A Twenty20 on the day 4-5 pitch on which Ambrose took 6-24 in England's second (19.1 over) innings would be awesome... though I'd settle for a pitch like the one for this game.

Bottom line: the pitch should be such that an early-innings ball pitched on a good length and 2" outside off stump (at any pace abolve military medium) leads to the batsman thinking "oh ****".

You are saying there are only two over difference, Ok add only another two overs and suddenly a bowler is bowling 40% more overs.

Even on just saving two overs a match, over a 9 match series - that would be a saving of 18 overs, and with say 3 series a year - that would be 54 less overs causing wear and tear.

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Ern

Many do just that. I go to watch all forms of the game and I know many others who do the same. What 20/20 will do is introduce youngsters to the game. Most youngsters do not have the attention span to get into Test cricket straight away, however by attending 20/20 and then Friends Prov or Pro40 games they will become sufficiently interested to want to watch Tests. That's the way I did it, my first game was a Notts-Yorkshire JPL game at Trent Bridge that was reduced to 13 overs per side!

Too right NE...

I am so sick and tired of people referring to Test cricket as the only form of Cricket, yet it is played by a few professional players!!

Most people play a 40-50 day game over one innings each. Many people enjoy a work game played over twenty overs!

Over the last thirty years Test cricket has been enhanced by ODI cricket, with improvisation, faster run scoring, intelligent bowling rather that degraded.

I agree with Rachael that contest between bat and ball is vital, but I do not agree that a mediocre bowler should be as threatening as a genuine quick bowler. That is ridiculous.

The fact is the game changed from the earliest versions of the game, in the 1820's/1830's the big debate* was round arm bowling or under arm, today it is conventional verses reverse swing. Is there any difference.. not really.

If the game you want to keep is the version that grew up after Bodyline and died after ODI's, then you have no hope of ever enjoying that game again, it has gone (in the same way the lob bowling era has gone) and this era will go, eventually, and the next era will go, and that is why Cricket is so great. You either have to accept the change, or die with it.

* and it was a debate, with many people not able to accept this form of bowling, which we so easily assume is normal?

Sorry, Er, that's untrue. The game has changed the off-side rule numerous times and now goalkeepers cannot pick up backpasses. The game itself now flows in a very different way. Over the last twenty-five years that I've been watching the game it has changed; the physical challenges we used to enjoy seeing have been outlawed and players spend more time diving around and feigning injury. The use of substitutions is now tactical.

NE,

Football and Rugby regularly review their rules, to make the game flow better, or to increase spectator enjoyment. Cricket very rarely changes it's fundamental laws, but does change it's format.

That NE is just tinkering with the rules, like the LBW laws in cricket.

But there has been no fundimental change like having 100 minute matches, or 20 minutes a half matches.

Yes they have 5 a side, but it has never been more than a bit of fun - and is not taken seriously, and certainly is not a major entity.

Neither does soccer have different rules for different formats, that would alter to any significant degree a players technique.

One day cricket has changed the way cricket is played, 4 runs an over in Test cricket is major change.

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Ern