Well I've spent my few days off watching, spasmodically, the world 20;20 and so far my excitement has been scarcely containable. The qualifying rounds had no close games at all unless foreshortened to D/L and were watched by next to nobody. The first game proper today started with two wild swipes, two wickets and oh the excitement two sixes i.e. six and out. The pitch of course was heavily doctored cf with those usually seen in India for the IPL ( so I'm told) in an attempt to guarantee a victory for the host nation. The only satisfaction was that it didn't work - so a few bets down the plug hole then.
This cretinous travesty of a once great sport truly is a cause to despair - not because it doesn't have a place, even 'The Sun' has some sort of place in the Pantheon of world journalism- but because of its increasing monopoly status in cricket. It is 'Ludo' compared with Chess, Jackie Collins compared with Shakespeare, an ungrammatical text compared with an in-depth conversation.
It is symptomatic of the instant, throwaway culture - infantile,crass,one dimensional and fake- that society has become and I'm glad that at my age I won't have to put up with this progressive rot for too much longer.
