A TWENTY20 world championship may be slotted into the calendar as soon as next year as the format born in England continues to pass every test of its popularity. Derided by critics as no more than a slogathon when it was introduced here in 2003, it is a couple of meetings away from being adopted as a leading international event.

Nine countries have told the ICC they would like to host an inaugural competition and England have refrained only because a first tournament is pencilled in for 2007, when commitments against West Indies and India already fill the summer. The ECB will consider bidding in the future, while Scotland has also expressed an interest.

The ICC is committed to staging a significant event every year until 2015 and the beauty of Twenty20 goes beyond sheer popularity wherever it has been introduced. Depending on the number of countries involved and the extent of a round-robin element, it can be over and done inside a fortnight at a single venue to cut down on travel.

If the idea is rejected this time, and if 2007 is deemed to be too soon after the World Cup in the West Indies in March and April next year, the momentum behind Twenty20 means that its introduction is only being delayed.

With so much success it is difficult to remember that seven counties voted against the format before the ECB decided to dip its toes three years ago. Aggregate crowds in England have grown year on year. Lord’s has staged its biggest county games outside one-day finals since 1949 and unfashionable counties such as Derbyshire and Leicestershire have reported full houses. Women and young people — the target audience — are conspicuous at grounds and gimmicks are secondary to the games.

Success has been exported. The first Twenty20 international in Australia, against South Africa, attracted a record crowd of 38,894 to the Gabba last month. And Cricket Australia, initially suspicious, has pledged to double the number of state fixtures next season after its first competition surpassed all hopes.

New Zealand and Sri Lanka have similar events, while a final in Pakistan last year drew almost 30,000 spectators. The Pro20 in South Africa is in its third season. A long-term decline in crowds was arrested when 153,000 people watched 17 matches in 2003-04 and it helped to forge identities for six new teams created out of a franchise system.

Stuart Robertson, the initial face of Twenty20 and widely credited as the inventor, has since left the ECB to become head of marketing for Warwickshire. The germ of his idea was sown by Cricket Max, an abbreviated version of the game in New Zealand. Later research confirmed demand for short matches held in the early evenings of summer.

“The way it has grown is fantastic,” Robertson said yesterday. “If we got to the stage where we were playing three or four or five Twenty20 matches against every touring side, I think that would become too much. I still think we need to guard against overexposure, but a World Cup, maybe instead of the Champions Trophy, is a great idea.”

ICC meetings in Dubai over the next two months will determine how and when — if at all — a Twenty20 World Cup or championship would be configured, and it seems that India will provide the most vocal opposition. It has been hard-nosed in its resistance, arguing that cricket does not have to shorten its duration to find an audience in its own country. More pertinently, a quicker, shorter game cuts down on breaks between innings and wickets and reduces the potential for advertising revenue.

In the growing conflict between the Board of Control for Cricket in India and the ICC this is clearly not the issue that will bring discordant parties towards conciliation.

Having said on Tuesday that five countries wish to host the 2008 Champions Trophy, the ICC is trying to convey a worldwide consensus and isolate India’s refusal to take part. Australia, Bermuda, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and West Indies are all interested in staging the first Twenty20.

The next potential rift concerns the Champions Trophy scheduled to take place in India this year. The staging agreement says that grounds must be handed over clean of advertising to make room for logos of ICC sponsors but two of the three venues, Bombay and Delhi, are the subject of existing long-term deals with commercial rivals.

CROWD PLEASER

MATTHEW PRYOR

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