Dubai: With most of the leagues, school and academy matches being conducted in Twenty20 format in the UAE, it hardly gives the youngsters a chance to become a technically sound batsmen. In the past, most cricket councils conducted many 50-over games but except a few, there is hardly any tournament being played over a day now.
Twenty20 is a good format as long it serves the purpose of developing a batsmen’s shot-making skills and enabling to adopt a bold approach to batting, but too much of exposure to the shortest format will only make youngsters develop bad habits.
To develop strong foundations one needs to play the longest format, at least two or three-day contests, as these games will enable them to learn the art of building an innings. Just recall how often one has seen teams getting dismissed within 50 overs in innings matches. With sound technique, it is lot easier to switch from the longer format to the shorter formats, but on the contrary, it is difficult for a Twenty20 specialist to adapt to conditions when faced with an attacking field and eventually he succumbs to poor strokes.
A drive is considered an extension of a batsman’s defence and if one does not have a strong defence, he is exposing himself and the team’s weaknesses to rivals’ gameplan. Twenty20 doesn’t give one a scope to play defence and hence more often than not, when team lose a few early wickets, the Twenty20 specialists still continue to play attacking shots and trigger a team collapse.
From the bowlers’ perspective, Twenty20 format makes them bold after taking the stick from the attacking batsmen but in the bargain, they try too many variations and in turn compromise on the basics — line and length. The spinners are not overtly affected by this format, in fact they dominate as lack of pace and batsmen’s inadequacies make their job all the more easier. However, the pace bowlers are averse to going all out and bowl quick.
Very often, one has witnessed a spinner opening the bowling in Twenty20 matches even in a schools’ tournament. In this scenario, the pacers don’t get an opportunity to bowl with the new ball and test the batsmen.
Hence, it is important to play more duration games to follow in the footsteps of Afghanistan and Ireland if UAE wishes to become a Test-playing nation and join the elite of the sport.
