The True Nature of Twenty20 Cricket is Revealed

First things first: congratulations to Ireland and the Netherlands for enlivening the World Twenty20 Cup. Secondly, well-done Australia who now have an extra couple of weeks to prepare for the Ashes. Typically, England flattered us with their cunning in their opening fixture only to let us down in their second.

Thirdly, I’m indebted to Pootergeek for drawing my attention to the fact that the tournament’s organisers have endorsed my view of the essential nature of Twenty20 cricket: namely that like anything that is barbarous and, in some sense, grotesque it has a certain fascination but that, nonetheless, we are supposed to have evolved from this sort of thing en route to our present happy, civilised existence and that, consequently, Twenty20 must be seen as little more than a return to man’s primitive state and the law of the jungle…