by Michael King

Created on: March 14, 2009   Last Updated: March 20, 2009

Cricket was a dying sport, losing it's fan base to long drawn out test matches and 50 over battle in which neither side was sure whether to offend or defend. T20 has revitalised the sport, drawn in fans and brought more money to the game then ever. Just look at the average tickets sold for a T20 game compared to a test. It remains that most international tests in England are sold out, but county T20 is filling up too!

T20 has the pace, the vigour and the sheer thrill to be massively successful and bring cricket into the 21st century, however it is remorseful the conduct of the likes of Sir Alan Stanford and the funding behind the IPL. Extravagant amounts of money is just not cricket. That's football. The last thing any real cricket fan will want is for T20 cricket to become like the Premiership football league. We don't need Roman Abromovich's millions or 100 million pound transfer deals.

In one respect T20 cricket is new, exciting and the future of the sport; in another it is risky, over commercialised and possibly the downfall of the game's credibility. There is a saying I've already used in this article. "That's just not cricket". That saying originates from the laws of cricket, not the rules, they are laws. Umpires are the highest authority on that pitch and they enforce them as laws. There is no arguing, there are no disputes and pressuring the umpires like footballers do with referees. This is because in football the winning team usually earns several million more. Winning the league earns the club hundreds of millions and the players see some of this. In cricket the sport itself means more then the money.

We even saw it in the Sir Alan Stanford million dollar match, where each player from the winning team would walk away with a cool $1 million. Conduct was appalling. Not noticeable to the untrained eye, but down there on that pitch was subtle, and not so subtle, pressuring. There were disputes, because all of a sudden that poor decision by the umpire that gave your teammate out was worth $1 million.

So embrace twenty over cricket, it's fun and it's new and it's revitalising the sport of cricket, but be wary, for it's over commercialisation may just destroy the fabric of the game that makes it unique and separate from the others. It is as much the duty of the fan to uphold the old laws then of the players on the pitch, the coaches and the ICC. Now that's cricket.

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