Tunnel Vision

One of the big selling points of a 20/20 match is that it doesn't last very long. This means that can all be done and dusted in under three hours - games can start early evening after work/school, and kids with limited attention span can enjoy the experience. The truncated version of the game also suits the TV scheduling.

Oddly the organisers of next summer's 20/20 World Cup seem to have overlooked this - or deliberately disregarded it.

The result is that the whole basis of the event is a series of 'double-headers' - two games in one day on the same ground. As all tickets have been sold on this basis, you have to assume that there are no plans to do what they sometimes do in the US and clear the ground and then fill it up again later in the day - so everyone gets two games on one ticket.

Now on the face if it that makes £50 quid for the day a bit of a bargain. But it means that you've automatically reduced the total number of people who can watch one of the games by a half - and in a country where cricket is very much a minority TV sport, that's a bad oversight.

The problem was created for the organisers as soon as they were told that the whole tournament had to fit into a fortnight (good idea) and that to reduce travel times all the games would take place on only three grounds (appalling idea) Anyone living in striking distance of London and Nottingham is laughing - assuming they were lucky in the ticket lottery. The other eighty percent of the country will have to make do with Sky coverage - assuming they've got a dish, and can bunk off of work and school to watch the daytime games.

With a bit of thought and planning the authorities could have actually boosted their income - even my shaky grasp on maths tells me that filling a ground twice for £30 a pop means more income than filling it once for £50. That would have also spread the message wider and created more goodwill amongst the cricketing public.