Roaring Twenties

The signs on the foreboding metal gates at Trent Bridge scarcely seemed to reflect the inclusive spirit of Twenty20 cricket.

'No flags, banners, whistles, drums and other musical instruments may be brought into this ground,' they declared with all the fun-crushing stuffiness that this rave new world was supposed to eradicate.

Although the instruction presented no problem to the Sugababes, the pre-final entertainment, it posed a problem for the young man trying to busk through security with a small inflatable guitar.

Despite being unable to strike any chord on his no-string, he was required to squeeze the air from this inoffensive prop and watch impotently it being placed in a plastic bag thence into a black sack. He took his seat looking even more deflated than the guitar.

That was to prove a rare discordant note on Finals Day, a suitably triumphant conclusion to another successful season of rising attendances.

The ECB seemed understandably delighted to report a five per cent increase, up from 457,000 to 480,000 in a summer dominated by the soccer World Cup.

Little wonder that David Collier, the ECB chief executive, spoke confidently about plans to enlarge the group stages, maybe even as early as 2008, one year prior to the ICC Twenty20 World Championship being held in this country. Twenty20 is spreading like Japanese Knotweed.

Perhaps it is time then to abandon the dubious musical attractions, make that distractions and the often unconvincing razzmatazz, and have the self-confidence to sell and stage cricket's most abbreviated branch as a stand-alone piece of sporting entertainment.

No one could argue with the fare on the square throughout Saturday, featuring a classic and controversial last-ball finish in the pouring rain which saw Nottinghamshire sign off with a mighty six yet still come up four runs short of deserving champions Leicester-shire's total of 177.

If it is time to ditch some of the off-field stuff — though please not the mascots race won this year by Sid The Shark from Sussex — then it may also be appropriate to accept that fast-food cricket is more about making a fast buck than introducing a new, younger audience to the sport.

"It's for the kids," Darren Gough had said in a morning interview, offering a familiar party line.

If it were for the kids in this attention deficit society in which we live, finals day would not last the best part of 12 hours. How ironic that cricket's shortest form should reach a climax in cricket's longest day.

However, despite Sky's penchant for stopping the camera on eager young faces, there were not too many children inside the ground, perhaps no more than a few hundred among the capacity crowd of 15,400.

This looked very much like a conventional one-day audience who had turned up to see the cricket and drink both deeply and frequently from the numerous beer wells.

It's not for the kids, it's for the lads. Twenty20 could refer to pints as well as overs. You had to, for example, search long and hard to find the compulsory bouncy castle, hidden away better than Sleeping Beauty's place of incarceration. Similarly, the face-paint tent, secreted at the back of a stand, was doing less than roaring business. Unlike the bars and burger vans.

Three years ago, as admittedly a sceptic, a traditionalist and a purist, I had attended the inaugural Twenty20 match at the Rose Bowl in Southampton. I was none too impressed, either with the show or the sideshows.

But I did note that "the wise people of Hampshire came along — after school and after work not to enjoy all the fun of the fair but to watch cricket. Success will depend on what happens on the pitch".

Twenty20 has been an unmitigated success in terms of attracting spectators and generating income for otherwise financially strapped counties because of the way the game has progressed and developed. Not because of Sugababes and Atomic Kitten and Girls Aloud.

The best note is struck when David Hussey of Notts hits the pavilion roof, as he did twice in the semi-final, and not when a singer called Keedie hits high C.