How times have changed

The BCCI members had resolved in a working committee meeting recently that they were not happy with the Twenty20 version...

May 2006: The BCCI members had resolved in a working committee meeting recently that they were not happy with the Twenty20 version and will not play it. This was Board of Control for Cricket in India president Sharad Pawars stance three years ago,when the Indian teams participation in the inaugural edition of the World Twenty20 championship itself was in doubt.

Back then,the bigwigs in the board considered the format a bit of a joke. England might have needed T20 to bring crowds back to the grounds but India did not,was the general theme and anyway,they whispered,the fast-paced nature of the game,with just a 10-minute break,didnt lend itself to advertising revenue.

As Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his team prepare to start their title defence,its hard not to chuckle at how,and how much,the boards posturing on the games shortest format has changed.

Amounts previously unheard of are pouring into the game,with film stars,socialites and business tycoons all slipping their hands in for a slice of the big pie. From a team who werent happy with the format,India go into the world championship on the back of the 37-day Indian Premier League. Then,theres the Champions League slated for later this year,while BCCI already has plans for another corporate T20 tournament,on the lines of the IPL. Whether this really is the future of cricket or just plain overkill remains to be seen.

For now though,there is a lot to look forward to,not least the absence of screeching DLF Maximums and squealing Citi Moments of Success. Doesnt going back to plain old sixes and fours feel like a return to some pristine form of the game?

The biggest thing this tournament has going for it apart from the fact that India cannot possibly get knocked out in the group stages is its length. At 16 days from start to finish,its less than a third of the inaugural IPL and just about a fourth of the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean,which really was crickets never-ending story.

And so it is that Dhoni amp; Co,who went into the first edition as complete outsiders,strut into summery London as outright favourites,even if the term doesnt lend itself easily to a format where upsets are commonplace and reputations dont matter. They lost their first warm-up match by nine runs to New Zealand at Lords three days ago,a defeat that Dhoni put down to a few experiments that went wrong more than anything else,and played against Pakistan on Wednesday night.

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Not too much can be read into the performance though,and the Indian camp will know that the only thing that matters will be how they do on the day.

The draw has been kind to them: While being in a three-team group that includes Bangladesh and Ireland doesnt ensure a sleepwalk through to the second group stage,it does give the team room for a bit of starting trouble. They can also take heart from the fact that the weather has been pleasant,unlike South Africa recently where temperatures dipped as low as 5C.

Dhoni has repeatedly spoken about breaking the game down into parts sessions,hours and the like. In that context,this tournament can be broken into three phases the sleepy group stage,the race to the semis and,to wind up,the two big knock-out games.

As far as initial targets go,they need to win at least one of the two games over the first five days of the tournament to ensure they stay in the hunt for the semis. And if they,somehow,contrive to lose to both Bangladesh and Ireland8230; well,theyd deserve to be on the early flight back home.