A Twenty20 virgin speaks out

I had my first experience today, not just of Twenty20 cricket, but cricket full stop. We went to Richmond County Cricket Club - one of the most picturesque cricket grounds, I'm sure, even though I've not been to any others - to see Middlesex Crusaders take on the Hampshire Hawks in this year's Twenty20 Cup.

As I walked through the gates, I was greeted with the sites of red wickets (how the purists must have fumed at this heathenesque defecation of the fine game!), and cricketers wearing blue and pink attire - slightly bizarre, I must admit.

It was a great afternoon though - the weather was excellent, the setting idyllic and I thoroughly enjoyed it, although I don't think the match was the greatest example of the format. Hampshire batted first, and made what I thought was an average total - 133. At 'half time', so to speak, other Twenty20 cricket scores from around the country were being read out across the tannoy, and I was hearing totals of 180, 165 and 210 so I presumed I was right in my initial thoughts. George, who I went to the game with, also reliably informed me that Hampshire weren't much kop at this malarkey anyway.

Middlesex, I envisaged, would surpass this total pretty easily - they had one-time England opening batsman Andrew Strauss and occasional England one-dayer Ed Joyce lining up for them after all. I know that Strauss isn't the most aggressive of batsmen and generally builds himself up towards a total in the manner of a fine test match cricketer - if he can survive past 20-odd, that is - but I still presumed that he was a first-class batsman, and therefore would be smashing the ball for fours and sixes all over the park. True to form, though, he made a pedestrian 12 off 19 balls.

Middlesex got themselves into all sorts of trouble with a lacklustre middle period, and stumbled to 65-6 off about 14 overs. It looked like it was game over and it looked like there would be little excitement or tension in the match, but they made a late flourish, and even had a chance of sneaking the victory after charging to around 115 with one over to go, but they fell just short in the end. That didn't stop Shaun Udal smashing four sixes in his brief stint at the crease, giving me and George the opportunity to use our mostly idle '6' cards.

Upon my first experience of live cricket, I would just like to make a few observations;

• Renaming the teams the 'Crusaders' and the 'Hawks' is an awful attempt by the cricketing big wigs to try and reach out to the masses. I'm pretty confident that no one even uses the names ('Hey, do you fancy watching the Hawks and the Crusaders tonight?"), and far from 'jazzing' up the format, they're completely unnecessary and embarrassing.
• A cricket team playing in pink, again, fails on all levels. In an attempt to encourage supporters to part with their hard-earned cash like they would a football shirt, and make a definite step away from the clinical whites that tradition dictates, someone down the line has envisaged this as a fantastic idea; but if I was a cricketer, I certainly wouldn't choose pink. It's another attempt to add a bit of colour and excitement, but the cricket is supposed to do that itself, so to embarrass the poor cricketers by dressing them in pink seemed a little heartless.
• Playing Kylie Minogue and Gnarls Barkley for brief moments as a boundary was hit, again, didn't really do much to gee up the crowd. From a quick observation of the demographic in attendance, I think they may have been more receptive to a nice bit of Handel or Beethoven.
• The format fails, if, like Middlesex did, the players don't slog it out. The whole reason that the format was introduced was to encourage slogging to keep the marketing men happy, so to see the batsmen snicking the ball away for ones and twos didn't really make any sense. One of the Hampshire bowlers even had the nerve to bowl a maiden, which I'd have thought was absolute sacrilege in this sort of match. As it turned out, a couple of the Middlesex batsmen almost rescued victory from the jaws of defeat and made for a tense final three or four overs, but for much of the second innings, the match seemed like a non-event.
• I'm not sure where the purists presume the binge drinking en masse is taking place. The atmosphere at Richmond, in spite of Kylie blasting out of the speakers, was quite subdued, and me and George often felt pretty foolish waving our '4' and '6' cards when a boundary was scored.
• The idea that you can leave home after lunch and return in time for tea is fantastic - you still get to see plenty of good cricket, but don't have to sacrifice half your life to watch it.

On the whole, though, what with the weather and the occasional boundaries to cheer, it was a really fun afternoon. Nothing too hectic, but not so pedestrian that I became bored. We're planning on going to the Oval to see Middlesex take on Sussex on Friday night, where I imagine there will be a more intense and lively atmosphere than the sedate affair I experienced today. But for a first time, I'd certainly give it the thumbs up.