THE philosophy of the English Cricket Board was set out clearly at Trent Bridge yesterday by the girl band Atomic Kitten: “Do it to me! Do it to me now! Do it to me slowly.” The sexing-up of cricket reached its zenith in the finals of the Twenty20 tournament, and what it proved above all else is that the English still have a lot to learn about sex.

For a start, our foreplay is terrible. “Ladies and gentlemen,” cried the announcer as proceedings began, “please welcome . . . the umpires.” Oh dear. To continue the sex analogy, this would have been the “Is that all there is?” moment.

It is almost impossible to whip an English cricket crowd into a frenzy. We simply don’t do that sort of thing. During the interval performance by Atomic Kitten, the crowd was urged to “put your hands together”. In the lower terrace, one woman obligingly clapped before she looked round, felt a bit embarrassed, and stopped.

The modern thinking appears to be that a good day’s cricket is all about noise. Every time a four or six was hit, the ground rocked to a loud disco beat. “What’s that?” I asked a spectator after vaguely recognising one tune. “Dunno,” he said, “but I think they play it at Sheffield United.”

The idea of the Twenty20 tournament is to attract a new audience to cricket, while not upsetting the old crowd. Cricket, when played properly, is like chess in protective clothing. A good game can take days. If you are lucky there will be the odd interesting moment as the strategy unfolds, but often the only real excitement is right at the end. And, likely as not, you’ll be elsewhere at the time. Just like sex, come to think of it. By contrast, Twenty20 crams as much action as possible into one day. Yesterday there were three games: two semis and a final played over 11 hours. That included lunch and the intervals and is about the time it took in the good old days for Geoff Boycott to feel comfortable at the wicket.

For some fans, it’s a welcome development. Chris Mabberley, from Swindon, is a member of the Barmy Army that follows England abroad. At least, that’s what it said on his T-shirt. “I’ve always been a cricket fan,” says Chris, 36. “I was brought up on it. I went to my first game when I was six. And I think this is the way to bring modern kids into the game. I do some coaching, and there has been a noticeable increase in the number of kids at my sessions.

They like the speed of the game and the action.”

The people who do not particularly welcome Twenty20 style are the fans who like a bit of peace and quiet. For these supporters, the ideal cricket match is played to the sound of a light summer breeze and the occasional loud suck as the top is removed from a cool box. As they snooze after lunch, they dream of a lost England of cricket whites and teas in the pavilion. Those days are long gone. Imagine a well-behaved football crowd and you’ve got the atmosphere yesterday. The Twenty20 target audience is young fans, and there was a hint yesterday that they might not be entirely impressed. Some didn’t watch the game, but set up wickets against walls and, in one case, a burger van.

So what do the traditionalists think, those familiar red-faced men in panama hats and stripey ties? Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any. Instead there was Dave Ward, 53, a Leicestershire supporter. Even before his team was beaten in the opening semi-final, he had mixed feelings about the day.

“The thing I don’t like about this is. . . ” he said as the ball sailed over the boundary for six. Unfortunately, his words were then drowned in the heavy disco beat of “That’s the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it”. Sorry, Dave, what were you saying? “The thing I don’t like about it is all the noise,” he said. “I’ve watched quite a lot of cricket overseas and it’s all like this. But I prefer to sit outside in the sunshine in peace and quiet. We have to do something, though, I suppose. Cricket is dying. Nobody wants to play it any more.”

If cricket really is gasping for breath, then Twenty20 is the kiss of life. There was a packed house at Trent Bridge yesterday: 16,000 spectators, and most lasted the 11-hour course. A one-day game at Nottingham might attract about 4,000 fans, while there would be dancing in the pavilion if a county championship match got a crowd of more than 3,000.

No effort was spared to keep the crowd entertained. Suzanne Dando, the television presenter and former gymnast, hosted some interval games she had clearly picked up from a church fete. In one, people from the crowd had to throw a soft ball into a large cardboard box. It was about as sexed-up as It’s A Knockout.

For proper sexing-up, there is nothing like a bit of candlelight. “The best bit is when it gets dark,” said McC member John Hitchcock, “and the lights come up. That’s when the atmosphere gets exciting.” He has been a member of Middlesex since 1959 and I suspect that at heart he’s a Panama hat and club tie sort of a chap. But he can’t get enough of Twenty20: “What I really want to see is international Twenty20. Imagine England, Australia and Pakistan all playing together.”

His friend, an Essex member, looked over his shoulder and appeared unconvinced. “England?” he asked. “It would all be over by about 11 o’clock.”

There was one encounter at Trent Bridge yesterday that perhaps shows how far cricket has to go. Despite many big-name cricketers at the ground, a small crowd of autograph hunters gathered around a bewildered-looking security guard. “Why do you want my autograph?” he asked. “I’m a security guard.” “Oh,” said a young boy, crestfallen. “We thought you were Stuart Pearce.”