Why T20 is Boring

It takes too long. No, I'm serious.

I mean how long ago did that IPL thing start? That seems to have gone forever.

This summer just gone they put the Big Bash on free telly for the first time. I watched most of the first week. By mid-way through the second week I started to think, who the fuck are these guys? Did they win last time? I don't remember. Does it matter if they win this game? If I look at the games ahead is this one crucial? Crikey, how many games are there? So if they lose this game, does it actually matter? Hmmm.

By the third week I had entirely lost track of who played for who, which team was wearing pink and which one was in lime green. Do I know? Do I care? Does anyone? It just went on and on.

Because, this is the thing about Test cricket: it's instant.

The second a guy gets out, that's it, that's history, that's what he did and that's what he will have done forever.

Every run counts, maybe not to the game, but to history, and history is made the very second the run is completed.

That's what the mountain of stats is all about. History is important in Test cricket.

I collect cricket books. I own around 230 of them, and I've read three times that many. Things that happened in an instant forty, seventy, ninety years ago, from the moment they occurred were locked down, immutable, forever, in this great arc of narrative that helps sustain my existence.

In Test cricket I get a result instantly. Every ball. It's history. Every ball.

In T20 I am flat out working out who the hell is playing for the blue team this year. And I find it hard to believe that anyone is going to care in one hundred years' time.