Originally Posted by
Burney
It's lowest common denominator crap. It takes all the intelligence, nuance, character, courage and subtlety out of cricket and boils it down to what is in effect a beer match. It turns bowlers into sacrificial lambs whose greatest achievement is not a wicket, but a dot ball, while batsmen are judged not on whether they can craft an innings in trying and adverse circumstances against everything a bowling attack can offer over the course of hours, even days, but whether and how far they can smash a ball over the course of an hour max.
It will inevitably destroy test cricket, because it doesn't require the attention span or amount of time to watch, works for advertisers, pays better and - ultimately - appeals to the base instincts of base people. The fact that it is to test cricket what Janet & John is to Anna Karenina or a child's daubs to a Vermeer won't matter in the end - moral high ground never won an argument yet.
Just another wonderful, beautiful and marvellous thing washed away by all that is banal, vulgar, ugly and stupid, that's all.