How T20 has changed cricket's entertainment level
The highs and lows of cricket fortunes can never be better portrayed than in a T20 fixture. The swings can be so swift that one is left to wonder if the term ‘supremacy’ has any relevance in this form of cricket! The India-New Zealand away series which just concluded is a case in point. True, India had taken a straight unassailable three-win lead in this five-match series, but the way New Zealand came back in the fourth and fifth matches must have left many pondering where all the power-packed Indian show till then had gone or why New Zealand had looked subdued earlier. There was nothing to suggest that this was the Indian team that had overwhelmed the host in such a pronounced way, nor did New Zealand give an inkling of being a beaten side. That is T20 cricket, and that, in effect, is cricket today. Instant results where it would appear the focus is more on the batting and bowling displays than the outcome, so to say. Yes, for the records, India had won the series, but the focus had to be on the kind of records that came up in the matches.
While the whole talk before the fourth match was India’s grand show in the third encounter in Wellington, where the boy wonder Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Abhishek Sharma put the rival attack to the sword, New Zealand repaid it in........
