How T20 has transformed cricket since 2003 ... for better and for worse – Chris Waters

Unbecoming terms were attached to it such as “hit and giggle” or “Mickey Mouse cricket”.

The concept was derided for its garish gimmicks, its football-style crowds, its apparent appeal to the lowest common denominator.

But as the 20th season of T20 reaches its climax today, one thing cannot be denied – the format has changed the game forever.

I remember covering the first Finals Day at Trent Bridge in 2003. The tournament that year was won by Surrey, whose captain, Adam Hollioake, later admitted that he thought that the England and Wales Cricket Board had lost the plot by introducing a format that was played by clubbies on weekday evenings.

Surrey beat Warwickshire by nine wickets in a final so utterly forgettable that I had to look up the details in Wisden.

All I recall about the day was listening to Atomic Kitten perform on a makeshift stage ahead of the final, blasting out such belting tunes as, well, I can’t remember any of those either…

Little did we know back then, as we sharpened our knives in the press box and tried to decide whether “crash, bang, wallop” was hyphenated or not, that T20 would not only change the game but cannibalise it too.

In fairness, we did see – pretty quickly in fact – the threat posed to the first-class game and competitions such as the County Championship, as well as the capacity for T20 to self-immolate as administrators seemed hell-bent on killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

No doubt the “visionaries” did see the possibilities as well as the pitfalls, although such individuals were to be found more outside our shores as the rest of the world not only caught up with England but also overtook it – most notably India with the IPL.

But cynicism abounded in dressing rooms and press boxes alike when the English competition came into being, a stark contrast to now when T20 is viewed as seriously and professionally as any other format.

My views on T20 have not really changed much over the years. Part of me cannot resist the odd dig at the hype and hullabaloo when the opportunity presents, although The Hundred has become a much more obvious target for journalistic scorn.

I like T20 in small doses (14 group games in the Blast is most definitely not small doses) and enjoy covering Yorkshire in 20-over action. But unless I am professionally invested in some way, or perhaps watching England, I have no real interest in T20 at all: I certainly wouldn’t watch the IPL, the Big Bash, the Caribbean Premier League, and so on, for pleasure.

And that, in essence, perhaps sums up what many traditionalists think about T20 – good in small doses, but hardly something that compares to the twists and turns of a great Test match, for example.

What I do marvel at is the way that players’ skills have evolved over the past two decades, the ball-striking power, the ability of spinners, in particular, to counter the onslaughts and especially the fielding, which is extraordinary at times.

In that regard, T20 has been transformative in ways that we never thought possible when it was first perceived as a bit of a wheeze.