Twenty20 has the longest advantage in cricket: Parore

AUCKLAND - Former New Zealand wicket keeper Adam Parore has said that cricket as a game is changing fast, and Twenty20, the shortest version of the game has the longest advantage.

“The days when young players’ aspirations from the time they showed promise at secondary school was ultimately to play test cricket for New Zealand, take wickets and score centuries for their country, are coming to an end,” Parore wrote in an article for the New Zealand Herald.

“My pick is that in time test cricket won’t be the No 1 version of the game. It will always exist because it is undoubtedly the best measure of a player’s skills, but ODIs are in grave danger. Waning crowd interest and the rapid rise of Twenty20 will see to that, perhaps as little as five years from now,” he added.

He also said that he expects Indian Premier League (IPL)-type tournaments to sprout round the globe, as they are the moneyspinners.

“When the top whack of 750,000 dollars - plus a silent bid top-up understood to possibly have reached 2.5 million dollars- is paid for a nondescript West Indian allrounder (Kieron Pollard) you know the game is changing fast,” Parore said.

The 39-year-old though thinks that eventually Twenty20 might become tiresome simply due to fact that there are so many tournaments around the world.

“This is one of the factors which has damaged the ODI format, but market forces, as in so many other aspects of life, call the tune,” Parore said.

“I can see teams touring and playing, say, three Twenty20s and two tests a couple of times a year.

International cricket will go the same way as international soccer and league,” he added. (ANI)