This 2020 malarkey

Wickman likes a bit of thrash and giggle. He's been trying to get in touch with Max Mosley for months to compare notes in fact. Boom boom...

2020 turns out to have changed dramatically in the space of three years. On the subject of boom boom, if you will recall, when it first burst into the professional firmament, 2020 was all about big hitting openers crashing the ball into the bleachers and bowlers were considered powereless cannon fodder. Those big heavy bats were destroying the game (blah blah blah), art of spin bowling dying out (etc etc) and muscle bound freaks like Graham Napier were going to be the future of the game.

And yet the biggest score in this tournament was actually only 210. Which is extraordinary considering the minnow sides who were supposed to get a good long handling and be skittled by the bigger nations. Most of the totals seemed to be in the 160-170 region. And the most astonishing individual performance was not from a batter but from Umer Gul who took so many wickets for so few runs against the Kiwis that everyone thought he must be cheating. There were only a very few "big overs" after the very much out of sorts Brett Lee left the competition and in 27 games no one made a ton and there was probably only one individual score in the 90s.

It has turned into a bowler's game. Don't get Wickman wrong - there were still some poor unfortunates who spent time staring straight up watching 5+ ounces of cork and leather disappearing "100 metres" into the crowd. Try smashing Ajantha Mendis out of the park though. Shahid "Boom Boom" Afridi did a bit of booming in the semi against South Africa and made a sedate 50 under no pressure in the final but did you see what he did to Gibbs and de Villiers with the ball to really win the first Pak / SA encounter? There were almost 33% fewer sixes hit in this tournament and the overall run rate went down too. Spinners (remember that 2020 cricket was going to finish them off) took more wickets at a better economy than their pacey cousins.

Now Chris Gayle and fatty Singh would probably laugh at this conclusion. When Gayle was clubbing Lee and Co out of the Oval into Archbishop Tennison's back garden at the beginning of the tourney and Yoovy looked like he was going to do to Swanny's head what the director did to that poor little girl in the Exorcist, Wickman was still expecting someone to come up with one of those Napier like contributions and turn in a 130+ tournament defining innings. It just never happened. Because there are now too many bowlers out there who know how NOT to bowl.

And actually it all got rather boring. Seeing Jacques Kallis tied in knots at Trent Bridge. Watching Albie Morkel get 24 yorkers (it might have been) in a row in the same game. 130 in the final from Sri Lanka. England going hours without a boundary against the Windies. Watching the Aussies self destruct to Mendis (actually scrub that, that was quite funny) and on and on. If 2020 is going to end up being a game where most teams score at 8 an over or less and the trend continues with bowlers on top and the number of sixes hit falling by 33% tournament on tournament in about 10 years they will have to invent Onetyone. The final will be won by the side batting first who manage to defend a score of 5 by bowling six yorkers to a field where only third man and fine leg are on the boundary and everyone else is within 10 yards.