Innovation has been a constant with the gentleman’s game. From starting off with Test cricket, it has now come to T20 cricket on the international stage. And recently there were talks about splitting a T20 match into four innings, but the idea hasn’t impressed either former India opener Gautam Gambhir or former Australia speedster Brett Lee.
Speaking on Star Sports’ show Cricket Connected, both the former cricketers rejected the idea. While Lee said that he wanted to keep certain things traditional, Gambhir said that Sachin Tendulkar’s idea of splitting the 50-over game made much more sense according to him as it also took away the ‘toss factor’.
Commenting on the suggestion, Lee said, “I am all for T20 cricket whether it’s the Indian Premier League or the Big Bash to have some flair about it, some excitement to bring people to the game. But there are some things you want to keep traditional when it comes to cricket and I think having 4 innings is a bit too much. I still think it’s always nice to see a target, and try and chase that target down or defend it.”
Gambhir echoed the sentiments and said, “I’m not a big believer that we should split T20 cricket into two innings. I think, Sachin Tendulkar somewhere gave a suggestion that we could try doing it with 50 overs which makes a lot of sense, because you’ve got 25 overs (each).
“It also probably takes the toss away as well – because in some conditions the toss plays a huge role and I was absolutely favour of that as well. But not in T20 cricket, it’s too short a format and there’s hardly any time. Splitting that into 10 overs each will be too short an inning.”