The Rise of T20 Cricket

Back in the late 1800s, the only countries playing cricket were England and Australia. As time passed, more and more countries started indulging themselves in this sport, which led to the flourishment of Cricket. Back then, the sole format in which this game was played was Test Cricket. It was not time-bound, the game would go on and on for days but as time passed, life started moving faster and people indulged themselves lesser in watching sports, which took many days. This gave birth to T20 cricket.

ICC T20 World Cup Trophy; Image source: Cricket Addictor

T20 (Also known as Twenty20) is a short game format of cricket. The sole motivation for introducing the T20 game series was to create a fast-paced game that would cater to the audience nowadays. Any T20 game is bound to be completed in about two and a half hours which each innings lasts approximately 70 minutes and a 10 minute break between the two innings. The time span of the T20 series is a lot more comprised as compared to the other formats of Cricket, making it the most popular format in today’s time.

T20 is one of the three current formats of Cricket recognized by ICC (International Cricket Council).

The T20 format was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board. They felt the urgent need for another one day competition when Benson and Hedges Cup ended in 2002. The main goal of the board was to make the game popular amongst the youth. For that, they needed something fast. That’s when Stuart Robertson (The Marketing Manager of ECB) proposed a 20 over a pre-innings game which came to be known as Twenty20 or T20.

The T20 format of cricket has played a huge role in the growth of cricket. A lot more countries started playing cricket, which led to proper international recognition of cricket.

The first T20 international match was held on 5th August 2004 between England and New Zealand’s women’s team, and later on 17th February 2005, Australia defeated New Zealand I in the first men’s international T20 match. Hence, this format became a huge success. But the world cup organised in 2007 changed cricket’s future in India.

The world cup begin on September 2007. First, India played against Scotland and won. Their second match was against Pakistan, which ended up in a tie, but India won via bowl out. Unfortunately, India lost the match against New Zealand, but the Indian audience really enjoyed the T20 format. Hence, two T20 leagues were launched in India after that.

The Zee Entertainment Enterprises (ZEE) launched a private Indian Cricket League (ICL). Along with this, Lalit Modi decided to launch Indian Premier League (IPL).

Twenty20 cricket have resulted in more and more success and growth of cricket. As of now (2022), there are a total of 78 countries who are engage in the T20 series (Men’s Cricket) and approximately 70 countries engage in the T20 series (women’s cricket) since the T20 format has been introduced.

T20 series has been a revolution in the field of cricket. The contribution this has in the field of sports is immense. With this fast-pacing life, we needed something thatcould entertained us in the manner we wanted to be entertained, and the T20 cricket format has done justice!