Good article...

Twenty20 is undoubtedly very entertaining (and if it spelled the end of 50-over one-day cricket, I wouldn't really care) but it isn't the highest form of the game and it would be a great pity if money made it so. Test cricket is just better: the batsmen have to make fewer mistakes, the bowlers are allowed their proper role as match-winners or losers, rather than run-savers, and, because a match lasts five days, it's more exciting.

This last reason may seem counter-intuitive to non-cricket fans so let me explain. Sport is, in essence, the earliest and best form of reality TV (obviously it predates TV - before that, it was just "reality stuff you watch"). It's compelling because it's really happening and no one knows what the outcome will be, and whether it will be exciting and satisfying, a dull anti-climax, or maddeningly unjust.

So when sport is thrilling, it's much more so than a Bourne film or an episode of 24, purely because it might have been boring; you've made the investment of time, you've taken the risk, so when the outcome is worth seeing, you're reaping the emotional reward. And there is simply less of that investment involved in Twenty20 than in Test cricket so it can't be as exciting - end of story. It may be a percentage choice for something relatively entertaining but it'll never hit the heights of the climax of an Ashes series because there haven't been five five day matches over which the campaign has been waged - and that's without counting the hundred years of rivalry, and the literal years of total time spent actually playing over that period, which raise the stakes even more.

So when sport is thrilling, it's much more so than a Bourne film or an episode of 24, purely because it might have been boring; you've made the investment of time, you've taken the risk, so when the outcome is worth seeing, you're reaping the emotional reward