Tym Glaser

WELL, IMAGINE this folks, there's now a World Cup for curry goat cricket.

Yep, yam-lickers from Portland to Hanover, dust off your gloves and pads, oil up that bat and swing for the hills and you too could be a world champion one day. The ultra-abbreviated Twenty20 game is consolidating its place on the world cricket landscape with the championship tournament in South Africa and it's providing pure cricket entertainment without conscience.

The batsmen get the green light to slog from the get-go and there's really not much the bowlers and captains can do to stem the avalanche of runs - particularly on these ever-shrinking international grounds.

If a batsman gets out playing the worst shot ever invented, well, that was what he was supposed to do. There's no place for dilly-dallying or playing yourself in - it's swing, swing and swing again and damn the torpedoes.

Of course, this game further marginalises bowlers who are basically on a hiding to nothing. Not only do field restrictions and bouncer rules carry over from the original one-day game but the bowlers are also further encumbered by a 'free hit' awarded after a no-ball is delivered.

Why not just get bowling machines at both ends and be done with the superfluous hurlers once and for all? I'm sure they wouldn't mind not going for about 15 an over one likkle bit.

To make things just a little fairer for the bowlers, why can't each wicket also result in five runs being taken from the batting side's score and off the bowler's figures?

Adopt baseball principle

Also, why can't the baseball principle be adopted where a catch is a catch regardless of where it is taken so, for argument's sake, a boundary fielder could complete a catch over the line or even by reaching into the crowd?

Meanwhile, captaining in the field must be like getting churned around in a washing machine when the batsmen are in full fIight and your bowlers are getting hammered from you-know-where to breakfast.

All the skipper can do is change his bowlers as often as possible so the batsman can't get a bead on any particular bowler and place the fielders where the ball just might be hit to them.

Still, introducing new people to this hyped-up version of the game aside, I can't see any real positive spill-over into Test cricket.

While the once maligned one-day cricket has led to superior fielding techniques and faster run rates in the five-day game, this slugfest has nothing particularly tangible to add because of the unorthodoxy of the batting and wanton battering of the bowling.

Thinking is also optional in Twenty/20 cricket as it's better to just close your eyes and slog. That, of course, suits people like me just fine.

Don't be surprised to see some white guy at a cricket field near you soon because this kind of 'dumb' cricket is right up my street.

Later.

Feedback: tym.glaser@gleaner jm.com