Happy birthday, Twenty20. The bastardised form of cricket hastily introduced not by millionaire Indian businessmen but by the ECB desperately seeking a format which boasted professional credibility and could attract the young audiences needed to prevent keep the traditional types of English cricket from dying on their feet.
The tenth anniversary seems to have crept up on me by surprise. I realised it quite by accident when browsing ESPNCricInfo's profile of a few Durham bowlers, and so my Plan B blog was born! OK, I know that twenty-over cricket at club level is as old as the hills but its launch as part of the county game occurred at 5.30pm on Friday, 13th June 2003. It could have been an unfortunate choice of date but the heady mix of bat, ball and dodgy pop acts like Atomic Kitten, MisTeeq and D'Side (who?!) attracted enough fans, many probably only 'here for the beer', to maintain the authority's interest for another year or two before the rest of the world caught on. The rest is history.
With no demands for daily games from BSkyB and Star TV, the 45 group matches were scheduled to be completed within just 12 days. With the longest periods of daylight, the Twenty20 Cup could bring in children after school and young office workers of both sexes, with a result almost guaranteed by 9.30 the same evening. The brainchild of ECB Marketing manager Stuart Robinson, the 20-over idea almost never got off the ground, and even after intense lobbying by the Board, the counties gave it only a narrow vote of approval, by 11-7.
The first games took place at Taunton, Worcester, The Oval, Chester-le-Street and the Rose Bowl, but it was the Hampshire v Sussex opener which attracted the cameras and the big guns to herald the introduction of the first new format since 55-over cricket began thirty years earlier. The match featured an all-round performance from Wasim Akram, a pinch-hitting Matt Prior and an impressive 54 not out in 39 balls from then Sussex 'keeper Tim Ambrose. However, the latter's efforts weren't enough to win, falling just five runs short of Hampshire's 153. So an exciting finale for the first ever match!
Elsewhere in the country, current household names like Ian Bell, Jonathan Trott and Graeme Swann were in action, the latter achieving the most economic bowling of the evening, 4-0-17-2. Mike Hussey, Simon Katich, Jamie Cox and Waqar Younis all impressed that night but it was a nicely measured run chase by Surrey against Middlesex which, in hindsight, set the scene for Twenty20 over the next few summers. Surrey's relatively unsung Jimmy Ormond claimed five scalps that day and his ability to take wickets whilst restricting scoring made him the first top 'death bowler' of the T20 era. He had played two Tests for England in 2001 but the new competition revived his form and reputation before injury brought his career to a premature end in 2008.
Adam Hollioake's Surrey went on to win the inaugural tournament and his tactical approach won over then initial hit-and-hope style of most other sides. Over the whole tournament, it's interesting to note that most of the highest-scoring batsmen were Aussies, led by Brad Hodge, Hussey, Andrew Symonds and Ian Harvey, who smashed the first ever T20 century, in 50 balls on 23rd June. Ormond, Glen Chapple and, curiously, Leicestershire's Virender Sehwag, each cionceded fewer than a run a ball across the competition, but Hollioake himself was the top wicket-taker with 16.
Twenty20 was born, like it or loathe it. Congratulations to Mr Robinson but having sat through another interminable IPL season, I reckon he has a lot to answer for!
