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And at the end of the fourth over, South Africa are nine for two. Yes folks, Twenty20 cricket explodes onto the Gabba!

To take the words of Bill Woodfull seriously out of context, there were two teams out on the field on Monday night, and only one of them was playing Twenty20 cricket. Australia, having lost their last Twenty20 international by a margin of 100 runs (in England last June), beat South Africa by 95 runs in front of the largest crowd to pack into the Brisbane Cricket Ground in modern times. And here’s one big advantage 20-20 has over ODIs - you don’t have to hang around for ages waiting for a badly-trailing side batting second to lose the game.

So despite the blowout that Monday night’s game became, at least the South African innings was all over in 78 minutes. They were nobbled when Nathan “Bracks” Bracken took two wickets in the third over of the South African innings, and despite the best efforts of Shaun “Pollock” Pollock and Jacques “Kallis” Kallis, the game slipped further and further away.

When Johan “Botha” Botha lost his wicket at the start of the 18th over, South Africa passed the threshhold of mathematical impossibility, a required run-rate of 36.0 per over. Perhaps we need a mercy rule, or maybe just more loud music over the PA.

When it came to the player nicknames on their backs, there really was only one team playing the game. Australia had Catfish, Marto, Punter, Roy, Pup, Mr Cricket, BJ, Kat, Bracks, Sarfraz and Billy. (How dare Mick Lewis take Craig McDermott’s name in vain?) South Africa has Smith, Dippenaar, Gibbs, Boucher, Pollock, Kallis, Rudolph, Hall, Botha, no name and no name. Garnett Kruger and Monde Zondeki wore shirts with no name or number on their backs at all.

As for Channel Nine’s telecast of the game, they opened up with a moment of televisual horror unsuitable for the kiddies at 7.30pm - the commentators were NOT WEARING ANY TIES! There they were, Heals, Tubby, Slats and Nickers with bare flesh exuding from their throats. More interesting for me was the ABC radio commentary, and it became quite clear that Kerry O’Keeffe and Twenty20 cricket is a match made in heaven. (Highlights of the radio commentary are available from the ABC website in MP3).

You’ll get no dispute from me that Twenty20 cricket is fun and is going to be around for a long time to come. However, I see it only as a piece of light-hearted, even comic relief punctuating a long, serious cricket season. Twenty20 is a niche game, and any national competition is best scheduled within the space of a week or so, as Cricket Australia has done with the “KFC 20/20 Big Bash”, and indeed as the ECB are doing, blocking out three weeks at the height of summer for their Twenty20 Cup.

It shouldn’t be allowed to devour the longer forms of the game, nor put more pressure on the already crowded international schedules. There’s talk of a Twenty20 World Cup, but I can only see that going the way of the Hong Kong Sixes, where the world’s cricketing nations are represented by third-string internationals or retirees making their comeback for the weekend.

New South Wales will host the Big Bash final against Victoria at North Sydney Oval on Saturday January 21. I am feeling duty bound to be there.

Finally, a quote from John Winston Howard on Twenty20 cricket, published by Melbourne’s Sunday Age on December 18:

It doesn’t appeal to me one bit. Don’t expect me to go and watch Twenty20 cricket. It’s too much like baseball. Not that I dislike baseball, but if you’re going to watch baseball, well, go to Yankee Stadium and watch it.

In one foul swoop, he has not just betrayed his carefully coiffured image as a “cricket tragic”, but insulted all who play and follow baseball in Australia. Perhaps Australia’s Number One Sports Fan has forgotten (or never actually noticed) that Australia won the silver medal in baseball at the Athens Olympics.

I’ve added a handful of pics from Sunday’s Twenty20 game to my flickr site. Possibly more to come but I’ve chosen a representative sample for now.

Pictured above is the commencement of the first over of the game, as Nicho (Matthew Nicholson) runs in to bowl to Flip (Craig Philipson). Pictured below is the procession of the beer snake in front of the Macartney Stand. where I was seated. Flip (no.27) has his back to the action as he concentrates on the play out in the middle.

I attended my first Twenty20 game yesterday. While I won’t be hanging out for the second, there are plenty who will. And that’s a good thing.

To get the bald facts out of the way: it was game four of the inaugural “KFC 20/20 Big Bash”, New South Wales versus Queensland at the North Sydney Oval. Queensland won the toss and batted first. They were all out for 167 in 17.3 overs. New South Wales replied with 5 for 168 in 18 overs to win by five wickets with five overs to spare.

The NSO was packed out for yesterday’s game, with an official attendance of 10470. The only spare spots I could see were in the Members Stand. The pre-match entertainment was amiably daggy with an endless barrage of 80s hits blasting over the PA. “Ooh that’s an oldie from Dragon” said the forty-something chap a couple of rows in front of me as “Howzat” by Sherbet was playing. The amiably daggy 2WS breakfast person Amanda Keller was master of ceremonies. There was the obligatory sky-diver who brought the match ball and the toss coin into the ground. There was face-painting for the kiddies (better than the norm, I must say). And a very ordinary six-hitting competition at half time.

And there were the players’ names on their shirts. No, not their names, their nicknames. The imagination level was about what you’d expect in most cases - take a bow Simmo, Rimmo, Nicho, Burkey, Birdy, Tatey, and of course, Kasper. My favourite was Queensland wicketkeeper Hannibal… not sure whether he likes riding elephants or it has something to do with his eating habits at lunchtime.

Unfortunately the ground announcers failed to inform us of the team changes from the printed program, even Blues captain Nicho wasn’t in the original lineup. (He replaced BJ, called up for the Australian Twenty20 team tonight.) I had no idea till I came home that Sydney University all-rounder Ian Moran had even played in the game, let alone scored 12 runs and taken three wickets. So that’s who Scotty number 28 was…

The game started with a crash bang wallop, Flip sending Eagle soaring over the boundary three times. My thoughts at the time were something along the lines of “Call me old fashioned, but I like a game of cricket where the batsmen have to run up and down the pitch and the fieldsmen have something to do.”

It got better, as the NSW bowlers started how to bowl a length, the fielders started blocking the runs, and the Queenslanders started messing up their shots. In the end, they suffered the ultimate indignity of being bowled all out in a Twenty20 game. And it took just an hour and five minutes. And, yes, it was the slower bowlers, Scotty and Obi, who triggered the collapse.

It was easy going for the Blues in reply, with opener Burkey playing an absolutely sluggish 30 from 24 balls in the sheet anchor role. Sooner or later these blokes will have to forget all semblance of technique if they want to play Twenty20 properly. DT smashed NSW to victory with the only half-century of the day, 57 not out from 38 balls. (Somehow I was expecting him to retire at 50, as per the Super 8s).

The spectators had much fun, with prizes on offer for every six caught by a spectator. Normally $100 for a caught six, the prize was $1000 is they were made off the designated power hitters, Flip for the Bulls and DT for the Blues. Of the fifteen sixes hit during the two-and-a-bit hours of play, I can only recall four or five being caught cleanly. Presumably the security guard who snared DT’s last six of the match was ineligible to claim his grand.

I was hoping to see Australian Under-19 captain Moey in action in this game, but despite being in the NSW starting eleven, he neither batted nor bowled.

So there it was. A match that began at 4pm was all over at 6.20. It was all action, all noise, but was over much too quick. Towards the end of the game I was asking myself “So who’s playing in the second game of the double-header?” Everyone had a good time, but I reckon most of them would have come along had it been an all-day 50-over affair.

In summary, the game was a load of claptrap. Enjoyable claptrap. But you knew that.

Scores:
Queensland 167 all out (Simmo 17, Flip 39, Reardon (his nick’s not listed in the program and he only faced one ball) 0, Bucky 49, Harry 22, Mahbo 8, Hannibal 6, Tatey 5, Noffers 3, Horry 3*, Kasper 3, extras 13; Nicho 4-0-31-2, Eagle 2-0-36-0, DT 4-0-30-1, Birdy 2-0-34-1, Scotty 3-0-21-3, Obi 2.3-0-7-2)

New South Wales 5/168 (Pro 30, Burkey 30, Barney 23, DT 57*, Didge 5, Obi 3, Scotty 12*, extras 8; Noffers 3-0-26-0, Kasper 4-0-38-0, Tatey 4-0-28-2, Horry 4-0-31-1, Reardo (I’m guess that’s it) 1-0-12-0, Simmo 1-0-17-0, Harry 1-0-9-0).

Further reading: Sydney Morning Herald reports from Peter Roebuck, Alex Brown and Justin Norrie. And here’s the real scorecard from CricInfo.

Coming up: some pics I took at the NSO yesterday. I’ll make some more comments on Twenty20 after tonight’s Australia v South Africa game. And there’s a podcast on the way too..

Surrey have enjoyed making heavy weather of their victories lately. Monday night’s quarter-final in the 20-over comp came down to a Duckworth-Lewis tie (Duckworth-Lewis tie in a 20 over game? sheesh). But instead of doing the obvious - five overs each way of extra time, and if it’s a draw come back Wednesday morning for the replay - they went for the next most obvious tie-breaker, the penalty shootout… er, the bowl-out.

In a match were no one reached 35 runs with the bat, Warwickshire found themselves needing 118 for victory in 15 overs after Surrey’s twenty yielded 149. Warwickshire made 117, and the game was on! At least, once the umpires sorted out what was happening. (Read this apology issued by way of an ECB media release on Tuesday.)

Jeff Green describes what happened in the bowl-out.

More coverage of Monday night’s madness from:

• BBC Online
• The Guardian
• The Times
• The Telegraph

But Ivo Tennant’s article in Wednesday’s Times, Teenager leaves professionals stumped in bowl-out skills, puts things into true perspective…

As for the name of this tie-breaking monstrosity, it does indeed seem to be the Bowl-Out and not the Bowl-Off, which I always preferred for its similarity to a Bake-Off, which would probably be just as effective a means of settling this game..

Let this be the first and last time I use the buzzword “Twenty20″ to describe what is nothing more than glorified 20 overs a side tippety-run like we used to play at school. The PCL (Pyjama Cricket Lite) game between England and Australia at the Rose Bowl, Southampton is about to start.

You’ve gotta hand it to Channel Seven. Sky Sports’ coverage absolutely enhanced with Tony Squires anchoring their telecast in Sydney, Stuie MacGill alongside him for expert insights, and Boofhead Lehmann at the ground with the sideline mike.

Doesn’t matter, I have the TV sound down and listening to BBC Five Live. Now this is amusing. Agnew drivelling about PCL being “the future of cricket”, while the good old Booker T and the MGs theme sound, circa 1968, playing in the background. Future indeed.

Comments during the game if I can stay awake. Live scores at Ananova, and let’s not forget the Guardian live description.

(Oh dear, the internet audio is about thirty seconds ahead of the Channel 7 video, and not the other way around.)

Pakistan has beaten New Zealand by five runs in the first 20-overs-a-side international at the Iqbal Stadium, Faisalabad.

It happened on November 23, 1984. Bad weather delayed the start of the game, which was set at twenty overs for each team when it finally got under way. Pakistan made 157 for 5, New Zealand were held to 152 for 7.

Despite Mudassar Nazar’s four-over haul of 4/27, it was Saleem Malik (41 from 40 balls) who was named Man of the Match. See the scorecard for further details.

There were no silly names like “Twenty20″ in those days. Remember this as New Zealand faces Australia for its second 20-overs international in two decades tomorrow at Eden Park.