Friday 5 February 2010

The man who founded Twenty20 cricket has warned of the dangers of overkill.

Englishman Stuart Robertson told AAP’s Adam Cooper that administrators must be careful not to schedule too much of a good thing even though the shortest format is booming.

Robertson devised the Twenty20 concept a decade ago in his role as marketing manager with the England and Wales Cricket Board.

Amid the surge in popularity in the format across the world, he has cautioned administrators not to pack more Twenty20 games into a schedule that is already jammed.

Cricket Australia is keen to expand its domestic tournament and might have to trim the other parts of the domestic program to squeeze in more matches, while the format has spawned a world championship every two years and the annual Champions League on top of the high-profile Indian Premier League.

Robertson, now the corporate director at county side Hampshire, is delighted in the interest in Twenty20, but said there was a risk of over-doing the format at international level in particular.

"Twenty20 was always designed as a game for counties or states or provinces and it was devised to address the declining audiences at domestic level (in county cricket)," he told AAP.

"I don't mind Twenty20s being used as a curtain raiser for an international series, to have one or two to whet the appetite for more cricket coming up, so long as they don't over-do it.

"If nothing else gives there is a risk of there being too much Twenty20.

"Everyone is looking at the attendances, but if it was to expand any further and the Test and 50-overs games did not give, there's a chance you could over-do it, so you've got to be careful."