Many sports fans have not yet known the reason of the just concluded World Twenty20 Cricket champion. It is Bikini cricket for young children. It’s all about boom, bang, bikinis, bucks and presumably beer, not cricket.

But the analysis does not go far enough. Bowlers are almost irrelevant in T20. Why not replace them with bowling machines so that batsmen can line up their favourite stroke and score a boundary every ball, or lose their wicket?

Then, we would get to see the dancers gyrating after every hit; after all, they’re in much better shape than the world-class athletes we are paying to see. In fact, why have cricketers at all?

Why spend five days trying to outwit and outmaneuver your opponents and then, horror of horrors, no one wins? Who needs endurance, stamina, strength, speed, tactical acumen, subtlety, adaptability, patience?

If T20 is the only cricket relevant to the modern world, all middle distance and endurance events should be deleted from the running and cycling calendars.

Remera