How about these odds: Twenty20 is fifty50? Translated, it could mean the latest cricket playing out on a screen near you is also a toss up between good and bad cricket, thrilling and tamasha cricket. Or, that fifty50 people think it’s just 20-20. Or that Twenty20 think its fifty50. Or — what nobody denies is it’s a quickie in-a-jiffy — you’re barely into it when a batsman is out, and the spectators out of the stadium. Match over and out.

This kind of tournament is more a spectator sport than a TV sport. Does everyone reading this disagree? See, if you’re a TV spectator you don’t get to enjoy the atmospherics: the music, the tight pants, the skivvies and the belly buttons dancing (not always in rhythm, as cheerleaders do to every shot), or shoot out (the figures they’ll have at the end of the series!); players lolling on the sidelines picking grass, noses, fingernails — this is picnic cricket and you have to be there to feast on it.

The five-day and the one-day game are ideal television: they allow us the liberty to watch cricket and live our lives. You can cook a meal and catch the replays; you could have a bath and find that there are still 80 overs to go. You can go to work and have the second half of the match to enjoy (always more gripping). If it’s a day-nighter you could dine out and return for the finish. Why, you can drive, fly or train it to another city and still catch some cricket.

... contd.