 Australia's coach, Tim Nielsen has called on the cricketing authorities
to show greater respect to the shortest version of the game, T20, than what they
are at present. Even 2 years after the inaugural World T20 that was held in South
Africa, cricketing tours normally hover around Tests and ODI series and a
one-off or atmost 2 T20 matches are scheduled in the itinerary. The main purpose
of those T20s is often seen as to attract more people to the game and is often
thus viewed more as 'exhibition' games. Nielsen said that this mindset will have
to change, especially when teams are supposed to compete for as big a prize such
as the World Cup for T20.
The coach has called upon Boards to regularly schedule three-to-five game series
so that teams can specifically plan for this format of a game. Despite Australia
featuring in the 1st ever T20 international that was held in 2005, it has till
now only played a total of 21 such games. In contrast, the same period has seen
them competing in 46 Tests and 122 ODIs. Nielsen said that teams need to chalk
out different plans and strategies to win T20 games and that they'll learn from
their experience from the last World Cup. Australia were beaten by eventual
champions India, in the 2007 World Cup; an event that in many ways has been
largely responsible for the phenomenal rise in the popularity of T20 cricket.
BCCI who had till then resisted giving too much importance to T20 couldn't
ignore the huge amount of excitement that the game brought to the viewers. IPL
followed suit and with the huge amount of money that poured in subsequently,
cricket was never the same again.
Nielsen who's already got in touch with Brad Hodge to get an insight into the
various strategies employed during his recent IPL stint also hopes to pick similar
titbits from Andrew Symonds and Mike Young, both of whom were associated with
the victorious Deccan Chargers squad. For the World T20 to be held next month
in England, Australia's been placed in a relatively tougher group that has Sri
Lanka and West Indies as the other teams in it.
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