Is T20's future in Australia?

[Dogwatcher]

WITH the T20 World Cup underway, it would seem timely to reflect on where the game is at this point in time.
Cricket Australia has taken a bit of time to totally embrace the game.
Our initial forays into the game saw us take an almost blase approach to the game - remember seeing the nicknames on the back of the shirts when we took on South Africa?
Mr Cricket, Catfish and Punter, if I recall correctly, all featured.
Prior to the currently running tournament, Australia has hardly set the world on fire at the T20 World Cup.
Even at domestic level the even shorter version of the game took off quietly, until this season when the quality of import players all of a sudden improved.
In this summer just past the excitement of the Big Bash saw interest grow significantly and now Cricket Australia is looking at ways to expand the format (and not neccesarily in a state based competition).
Could Australia be the new frontier for T20 on the world stage?
All of the money in the cricketing world is, of course, based on the sub continent - in particular India.
But, from the outside looking in, the administrative record is not so great.
It is interesting to note that the three major T20 tournaments in India have all featured a level of controversy that have done no favours for the game.
Most recently there's been the Lalit Modi scandal surrounding the IPL.
Of course payment was slow in forthcoming for players who took part in the now stalled Indian Cricket League, as well as the Champions League tournament that was played late last year.
While the Texan billionaire Allan Stanford was brought to book on fraud charges not long after his West Indian T20 extravaganza, adding further to the muddied waters around the format.
All of this tends to suggest that while the traditional funds base for T20 is in Asia, it might be time the game's controlling body, the ICC, started to look for a stronger administrative base from which to operate such tournaments.
Just remember, everything that glitters is not always gold.
And while the Indians do everything with plenty of pizzazz, there have been enough issues to suggest the ICC would be at least interested in putting their cash cow on a more firmer footing.
As evidenced by our continued gloating over the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games and their organisational structure a decade after the event, Australia could be the place to take on such
an event.
Australian sporting administrators take great pride in their skills at running quality events with a minimum of bungling.
Whether Australian officials can get past the intense lobbying of the cashed up Indians is another thing.
As I type, Dave Warner and Shane Watson are taking apart India in the T20 World Cup, maybe sometime in the future, they will be in opposing franchises in an Australian signature competition.

[brod]

Australia could one day have separate Twenty20 and Test teams playing simultaneously, according to the chief executive of Cricket Australia James Sutherland. The gap between the formats has grown and only five of the 11 who lost the World Twenty20 final to England are regulars in Australia's Test outfit.

Sutherland believes the separation will continue to grow, with more and more Twenty20 specialists likely to appear. The Australian reported that Sutherland outlined the vision in his keynote speech at a Cricket Australia conference in Queensland on Tuesday.

"While hosting Tests here, Australia could have its Twenty20 team touring somewhere else," Sutherland said. "It is difficult not to see a generation of players coming through with an eye to becoming Twenty20 specialists. As more Twenty20 cricket is played there are clearly opportunities for players to choose to be specialists.

"Taking it through to its natural extension, if you have a specialist team then why can't you have a specialist Twenty20 team and a specialist Test team [playing] at the same time? In rugby union, for example, the ARU has a sevens team and a Wallabies team."

However, while such an idea might suit older players who retire from first-class cricket to pursue a Twenty20 career, such as Dirk Nannes, it could make for some tough choices for younger men. Steven Smith, for example, has made his name as a Twenty20 player but his Test hopes could be scuppered if such a concept was in place.



Good to see James Sutherland actually does thi8nk and may even have an idea now and again