I sympathise with the petition and have signed it, but I think at the back of it all is a bigger problem. In 2003 when it started in England, T20 was just a bit of a laugh -it wasn't really even new since something similar, sometimes with 8 ball overs, had been played at club level on midsummer evenings in many areas for years. Since then it has become the cuckoo in the nest which is doing its best to throw out the other occupants. You can see this at every level-domestically with the constant changes in scheduling and now the controversy over the Franchise ideas, and internationally with the plethora of tournaments taking players away from Test cricket. Today we have two Tests being played totally out of season, in WI and SA, both virtually washed out, which would not have been played at this time but for the congestion in the calendar caused by T20. T20 can be sold very easily as an entertainment to people who don't care about the outcome, which is why yesterday's Finals Day offered only 800 tickets to each of the contestant counties so they could pre-sell it to people who just came for the day out. The way things are going it can only end one way, by forcing red ball cricket further out to the margins or beyond into extinction. We need to ask if we care about that-I'm afraid too many influential people in cricket give every impression of not doing so.
