T20 got too long and boring? Fear not, for T10 is here!

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 15

Last night in Sharjah, Shahid Afridi bowled out Virender Sehwag first-ball to complete a hat-trick. Yes, you read it right — the two were indeed present in Sharjah in flesh and blood, though it must be said they were mere shadows of what they were as cricketers. They were playing cricket’s briefest, newest version. T10 cricket has been launched, and those cricketers who’re aged, weak and retired now get another avenue to make some money while fooling around with a bat and ball.

Some fans may have been impatiently waiting for the advent of T20 cricket. You’ve got a low attention span? T20 matches seem interminable and boring to you? Then you’ve hit jackpot, for T10 cricket is here.

Sehwag was representing something called Maratha Arabians while Afridi was playing for Pakhtoons in a group match of the T10 League. And to be fair, all players in the teams were not ancient and relatively de-skilled like Sehwag and Afridi — the two teams boasted such players as Mohammad Amir, Ahmed Shehzad, Sohail Khan, Alex Hales and Dwayne Bravo.

Pakhtoons batted first and scored 121/4, and Maratha Arabians got 96/7 in their 10 overs. It was all over in a flash. The great advantage of T10 is that you can squeeze in two matches at one ground in one evening — in another match on Thursday night, Kerala Kings beat Bengal Tigers by eight wickets. These two teams were composed of unheralded players, has-beens, plus a sprinkling of current stars such as Eoin Morgan, Kieron Pollard and Shakib Al Hasan.

And would you believe it, there were four matches played tonight! In one of them, Sehwag’s team beat Team Sri Lanka. Quite wisely, Sehwag didn’t bat at all — he’d slotted himself at No. 8 in the batting order.

Bengal vs Kerala

Just how and why Shakib Al Hasan is playing for Kerala Kings against Bengal Tigers in the Sharjah desert is anyone’s guess. The easiest and best guess is “money”. Everyone knows that money makes the world go round, and there’s no point in blaming a professional sportsperson for playing for money. 

But T10 cricket does make people wonder what the world is coming to. Sarkar Talwar, the former Haryana spinner, seems bewildered by the concept of T10, in which a bowler can bowl a maximum of two overs!

You can’t be serious!

“T10? Are you serious?” says Talwar. “I am not sure where we are going to stop. We are killing all culture and conventions of cricket. In T20, bowlers at least get four overs to bowl, but T10... It’s ridiculous!”

But there are big names associated with T10 cricket... “I really can’t say why they are playing it,” says Talwar. “I can’t see any reason other than commerce.”

Olympics dream

Morgan, though, has lofty dreams. “I think T10 could be something you could potentially propose to an Olympic committee,” Morgan said. “When you look at T20 game, it goes for a little bit longer, so if you are talking about playing a role in the Olympics then you’d probably have 10 teams or more and that would probably last five or six weeks, but a 10-over league could be done in about eight days which could be right.”

What about, say, T5, with five overs an innings? It might work for cricketers who retired in the 1980s and 1990s. And 65-year-olds should be fit enough to bowl one over! Remember, there will always exist a market for, say, Imran Khan bowling to Kapil Dev, even if they turn 90. “I think we have reached a limit, I think T10 is as short as the game can go but certainly there is huge potential for a T10 game,” Morgan said, disappointingly — no T5 in the future, then!

But then, who’s seen the future? We might have T5 yet 10 years down the line, and maybe one-over matches being played 20 years later!