KEY POINTS:
Cricket is confused. It wants the money and it wants to retain its purity. It wants it all.
At every turn over the past week, players and administrators have offered more or less the same answer to the same thorny question - they love Twenty20 but they could
not live without tests, and together they can co-exist.
But when the talking stopped for a moment, the Indian Premier League could not have had a more auspicious innings to grab the world's attention.
At the Chinnaswamy Stadium, Brendon McCullum did what no amount of money or entertainment appendages could do. He played cricket from the gods.
In 73 balls of selective destruction and brutality for the Kolkata Knight Riders against Bangalore Royal Challengers, he supplied the reason for this tournament's existence - the prospect that it could, just, become the most enticing series in the game.
The world record 158 not out killed off the match, but just this once that did not matter. What an act it was for Punjab Kings and Chennai Super Kings, not to mention Delhi Daredevils and Rajasthan Royals, to follow.
Shane Warne has fashioned a career out of making cricket a piece of theatre. At 38 and not quite at his physical peak (indeed probably sliding down the other side of it) this is perhaps a bit late for him, but if anybody was going to turn that notion on its head, the blond from Ferntree Gully was just the boy.
Warne is the only non-Indian captain in the IPL, but they will probably become more commonplace if the fans take to the concept of following a city team. But these are not yet teams in the accepted sense- they were thrown together just three days before it was all due to begin.
The upshot of the bidding system for players is that there is no sense of team loyalty. It will be intriguing to see how Warne takes to Graeme Smith, and vice versa, when Smith arrives, for they have hardly had open-ended reciprocal invitations to share Sunday tea.
Another, of special significance to the England and Wales Cricket Board considering what is riding on it for their members, is the Twenty20 Champions' League.
When the IPL was announced last September it was as an ancillary to the Champions' League, which was to feature the top two Twenty20 teams from India, England, Australia and South Africa, with a top prize of 1 million ($2.53 million).
Trouble was that when the IPL took off and India's richest industrialists and Bollywood actors hitched their stars and oodles of rupees to its wagon, the Champions' League was sidelined.
The ECB were here in force last week to drag it back on to main street.
The World Twenty20 Cup in South Africa confirmed the format's status both as a compelling game in its own right and a slice of showbiz.
The next step is to ensure its popularity.
It will be a fortnight before we know whether Indians have taken to it. They adore cricket and worship Twenty20. This is a severe test of their idolatry, and all cricket depends on it.
- INDEPENDENT
