Twenty Things about the ICC World Twenty20

1. Yep, it was those old fuddy-duddy incompetents at the ECB that invented the game – or rather, took a form of the game well known in recreational cricket and honed it and marketed it for the professionals.
2. It’s the ICC World Twenty20 and not the World Twenty20 or the Twenty20 World Cup… and God save anyone from the wrath of the ICC if they forget it.
3. Slow bowlers – we’ll see plenty, including a lot who can bowl fast but will bowl it from the back of the hand or the side of the hand or with split fingers. The day is coming when all 20 overs will be bowled by slow bowlers, some of whom may be spinners.
4. Look out for David Hussey wanabees. Maybe not at this ICC World Twenty20, but possibly at the next, countries will select eleven players who aim to bowl darts that deliver 4-0-25-1, field like dervishes and smack 40 off 25 balls. Eleven David Husseys is not a pleasant thought, but they are coming.
5. Pre-meditating cross-bat slogs to straight balls doesn’t work on English pitches and will get you out.
6. Fast men and slow men are both liabilities at the death. You can’t let batsmen make the length too easily (against the slow men) nor have edges fly too quickly to the boundary (against the fast men). Mr Dibbly and Mr Dobbly at 120kmh are ideal death men.
7. We know that the ICC Committee men like what London’s restaurants and hotels have to offer – two out of three tournament venues in the capital is a snub to a nationwide T20 fan base.
8. The best batsmen will come charging in at the fall of the wicket and the best bowlers will hurry back to their mark and chivvy the batsmen on. T20 is about tempo and the side that has it will win more often than not.
9. Boundaries will be brought in – a shame, as a boundary catch is one of cricket’s finest sights.
10. Yes, despite the recession, what you can see and hear is a bunch of bankers and stockbrokers still in suits, but with ties loosened, swigging champagne.
11. The empty seats in the Lord’s Pavilion are reserved for MCC members many of whom don’t care for this sort of thing – and no, you can’t sit there.
12. “From this angle it does look like a clean catch, but from the other, it didn’t”.
13. “The appeal system would surely have reprieved him with that thick inside edge”.
14. “Yuvraj, who hit England’s Stuart Broad for six sixes in one over”.
15. “We apologise for that audible obscenity through the stump mic”.
16. Twenty20 is a family game – or it was until the families saw the price of the tickets.
17. “Many of this crowd will have bought tickets expecting to see England play Australia”.
18. The women’s semi-finals and final will be played before the corresponding men’s fixtures – with England the red hot favourites!
19. “This one’s going to go to the wire”.
20. “And we’ll meet again in 2011 to see if X can defend their trophy in er… where’s it going to be?”