Why age restriction on playing T20 cricket is a bad idea

Who decides how Sanju Samson should bat or not?

A lot goes on in cricket in terms of radical ideas springing up left, right and centre these days. And anything which has to do with selective treatment of cricket’s one of three forms, is bound to face some opposition from the fans and experts alike.

As per the latest idea proposed by the Australian selector Rod Marsh, Twenty20 cricket should only be played by cricketers over 30 years of age, and should be treated as a bonus after toiling hard in the more ‘traditional’ forms of the game.

This thought is obviously born out of the problems faced by the youngsters these days in the longer formats of the game, who are often unable to bring their T20 expertise to good use in the more patient formats of cricket.

It’s not new for T20 cricket to be blamed for having ‘corrupted’ the youngsters’ techniques. Coaches and young players alike are struggling to adapt to the different forms at all levels, where the demands of the three different formats are so different that budding cricketers are finding it hard to make a smooth transition.

But making it an exclusively 30+ format is going to kill the innovation factor that is so unique to T20 cricket.

By 30, most players are set in their ways and hardly look to change their game drastically unless major failures force them to do so. T20 cricket offers youngsters a great platform to try out new things, to experiment and to leave their own mark on the game.

Taking this opportunity away from a 17-18-year-old will mean depriving him of a great learning experience.

For example, Dhoni can play the helicopter shot because he’s been practising it since his childhood. Any professional cricketer would tell you that this stroke requires years of practice to execute at the international level, and it’s not something they’re ready to learn after 30.

That’s not to say that T20 cricket is the reason behind Dhoni playing this shot. But T20 is that free-for-all opportunity where the more innovative you get on the field, the better it is for the game.

The same argument has been used by Rod Marsh to cite the need to keep the youngsters away from the T20 format, to keep them focussed on the traditional shots, on solid defence and calmer cricket.

But in saying this, he draws a line on what is good for the game and what’s not, which is a dangerous outlook to have, keeping in mind what the fans want from a game of cricket.

And what about the players who aren’t good enough to make the cut in the longer formats? What about the so-called ‘T20 specialists’?

Sure enough, Test cricket should be treated as the pinnacle of the game, but that doesn’t mean young cricketers, having the skills required for slam-bang cricket, should be kept in the lurch till they turn 30 and lose the best years of their career struggling in the forms of cricket where their skills are wasted.

The challenge then comes in grooming the players according to their skill set and letting them explore their game, making sure their priorities are sorted.

Being someone like Virat Kohli, who has excelled regardless of format, is too idealistic for every other youngster to be. And hence, these youngsters are better off judging which format they want to focus on rather than the decision being taken out of their hands completely.

T20′s popularity is both a sign of alarm and a source of rejoice for the cricketing fraternity. God knows this sport needed something drastic to make it a true global phenomena, rather than being content in the small nutshell it has been living in since its birth.

But the need to popularise the sport also means a need to broaden our horizons. The traditional formats will have their share of players who are best suited for it, but to attract the way the T20 extravaganza does, ODI and Test cricket need to be made more lucrative, more rewarding for the players.

As long as only those who are inside the cricketing community keep glorifying Test and ODI cricket, these formats are going to die a slow death some decades down the line. The attraction for these formats must emerge from outside, and only that can make cricket a true global sport and keep the ‘traditional’ skills intact.

Age restriction on playing T20 cricket is simply not going to make the problem go away.