Former Australia captain Ian Chappell said that the T20 format has become too predictable and went in favour of batters, and it is not producing a proper ‘contest’ too. According to him, the toss has become a hugely important factor in the T20s. He also claimed that most teams are comfortable chasing because they are confident of their batting unit as well.
However, Australia has recently clinched their maiden T20 World Cup title by beating Pakistan in the semi-finals and New Zealand in the final as well. While speaking on Australia’s winning, Chappell wrote in his column for ESPN Cricinfo: “They clinched the trophy by clouting deliveries to and over the boundary, while producing a mixture of bowling that combined just enough wicket-taking with the right amount of containment. They also had the good fortune to win the toss when it really mattered, in a tournament where the major matches too often became a “win the coin flip, win the game” event. That was one of the major flaws in a tournament that achieved quite a lot of success.”
Interestingly, all three knockout games of the T20 World Cup were won by the teams who won the toss and chased as well. And, Ian Chappell pointed out that it was important to find a solution to this and stop the T20 format from becoming monotonous as well.
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He further added: “There’s an appeal for a worldwide T20 tournament featuring contests between nations. In addition, there’s widespread clamour for franchise cricket, which is increasingly popular and has experienced enormous success. However, there needs to be a wide-reaching survey into the changes required to improve the T20 format. To make it even more popular than it is, tournaments have to include a way to ensure the game doesn’t become a matter of winning the toss.”
Meanwhile, Ian Chappell has also stated that the T20 format cannot survive without the entertainment factor. But, he also claimed that the basic ingredients of the game cannot be compromised as well. However, the next edition of the T20 World Cup will take place in Australia next year.
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The veteran explained: “Then there is the balance between sport and entertainment. In my opinion the balance in T20 cricket needs to be somewhere in the vicinity of 60:40 sport to entertainment. At the moment it’s unbalanced and too much in favour of pure entertainment.”
“It is fine when middled deliveries finish up in the stands but a bowler should be extremely angry if a blatant mis-hit still clears the ropes. This problem is not so pronounced on larger Australian grounds, but I’m not sure what genius produced the ludicrous mixture of better bats and smaller boundaries. This combination is reducing bowlers to virtual bowling machines,” Ian Chappell concluded.
