Dec 20 2008
What is Twenty20 Cricket?

In our final Know the Game for 2008 we take a look at the life changing, fast pace cricket game twenty20. Although many people maybe picking up on the game after it made Darren Sammy a millionaire in the Stanford Twenty20 series the game has been there for a few years.

Twenty20 is a form of cricket, originally introduced in the United Kingdom for professional inter-county competition by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), in 2003. A Twenty20 game involves two teams, each have a single innings, batting for a maximum of 20 overs. A Twenty20 game is completed in about two and half hours, with each innings lasting around 75 minutes, thus bringing the game closer to the time span of other popular team sports such as soccer. It was introduced to create a lively form of the game which would be attractive to spectators at the ground and viewers on television and as such it has been very successful. The ECB did not intend that Twenty20 would replace other forms of cricket and these have continued alongside it. Since its inception the game has spread around the cricket world. On most international tours there is a Twenty20 match and most Test-playing nations have a domestic cup competition. The inaugural World Twenty20 was played in South Africa in 2007 with India defeating Pakistan in the final. The Indian Premier League is currently the largest and most popular (in terms of attendance and television audience) Twenty 20 league in the world.

Twenty20 Cup

The first official Twenty20 matches were played on 13 June, 2003 between a variety of English counties in the Twenty20 Cup. The first season of Twenty20 in England was a relative success, with the Surrey Lions defeating the Warwickshire Bears by 9 wickets in the final to claim the Twenty20 Cup. On 15 July 2004 Middlesex vs. Surrey (the first Twenty20 game to be held at Lord's) attracted a crowd of 26,500, the largest attendance for any county cricket game other than a one-day final since 1953.

The Stanford 20/20 Tournament is a cricket tournament in the Caribbean island of Antigua. It was held first in July and August 2006 in the West Indies at the Stanford Cricket Ground, St. John's, Antigua and Barbuda and the same place the year after. The format was initially devised and made possible by Allen Stanford as a part of his (private) plan to bring West Indian cricket back to life. 19 teams took part in the inaugural knock-out tournament and 20 teams took part in the second tournament (although 21 teams were originally scheduled to take part). It will now be a part of the official calendar of the WICB.