The golden age of cricket can be defined by the careers of two great batsmen, one a 19th-century Englishman, W.G.Grace, and the other a 20th-century Australian, Donald Bradman. I was once lucky enough to see Bradman score an impeccable double century at Taunton.

The silver age of cricket best expressed itself in the Somerset county eleven of the period around 1980, when one county side had the world's greatest batsman, Viv Richards, the world's greatest all-rounder, Ian Botham, and the world's greatest fast-bowler, Joel Garner. Somerset was still unable to win the county championship, and ended up quarrelling with all three of its heroes.

The history of cultures is a bell-shaped graph. There is the gilded morning of discovery and delight; there is the classical centre period, the Augustan age of the culture; there is the afternoon, with cucumber sandwiches at tea-time; there is the evening when the night is coming on.

A rather obscure 18th-century clergyman, the Rev James Bramston, described the process in lines of poetry far above his usual standard. Indeed it had been suggested that they were supplied to him by a poet of genius, Alexander Pope. “What's not destroy'd by time's devouring hand? Where's Troy, and where's the Maypole in the Strand?”

The culture of cricket now seems to be going the way of Troy, or indeed of the Roman Empire. The glory of cricket, with its intelligence and the complexity of the interplay, is sinking into the past; we are moving, surprisingly rapidly, into the dumbed-down cricket of Twenty20. Cricket first developed on village greens such as Hambledon; it looks as though it may come to an end at Bangalore.

Why do I instinctively dislike Twenty20 so much? It is not that I ever played cricket with even the lowest degree of club competence. I did have the good fortune to be a contemporary of Peter May at Charterhouse. He was the leading batsman of the under-16 eleven, and I was their scorer.

My objection to Twenty20 is that it purports to be cricket but is a quite different and much less interesting game. Cricket seems to me to be the most fascinating of the team games of summer. Twenty20 is a good deal less interesting than baseball, which is itself less interesting than cricket.

Twenty20 is also less interesting than the other forms of one-day cricket. In a one-day match of 40 or 50 overs, time is an essential element, as it is in four or five-day cricket. Different phases in these games call for well-judged captaincy and varying batting and bowling skills.

No doubt, given the financial rewards, players will emerge who are particularly suited to the Twenty20 game, but they will be operating inside a much narrower time frame. Twenty20 compresses the skills as well as the timing of the game. In particular, it leaves far less room for the skills of defensive batting.

I also object because Twenty20 is distorted to too great an extent by the requirements of television and the power of huge sums of money. I enjoy watching cricket on television, but I do not want cricket to be redesigned for television. I am all in favour of cricketers - or other sportsmen - earning large sums of money. Why should they not? W.G. Grace did in his time. I do not feel that cricket or football, or indeed other cultural activities, benefit if they are dominated by the hypermoney they attract.

I also find it offensive to see cricket becoming part of a culture of instant gratification. “We want sixes and we want them now,” is a poor spirit in which to watch as subtle and flexible a game as cricket.

A well-hit six at a critical point in a Test match can indeed come as a thrilling surprise; it is a meaningful part of the struggle, but even a good six can be meaningless by repetition in Twenty20. Sixes can become a bore, like the battues of pheasants by the thousand at Sandringham in the days of King Edward VII. Sixes laid on in Twenty20 matches can be mere satiation.

This may indeed prove to be the weakness in the Twenty20 project. Sixes are not particularly exciting in themselves. They consist of a well-built man lifting a small plank

of wood and hitting a leather ball a long way. They owe their power to excite mainly to their context, just as the marzipan on a Christmas cake owes its appeal to the cake underneath.

One Twenty20 match, as seen on television, is very much like another. No doubt the new Indian teams will acquire some loyal following in the subcontinent itself, as the Premier League has its own loyal following in England. But it does not follow that these Indian cricket elevens will acquire more than a purely local following which may itself lose interest. The Premier League is supported by a worldwide following in Japan or Nigeria as well as in England.

Cricket lovers are still the main audience for cricket. They do have an initial curiosity, and will watch some Twenty20 matches on television. Some viewers will be hooked, and will continue to take pleasure of sixes being hit in large numbers. But others will get bored. They will not make the vital connection of loyalty which underlies the global interest in Manchester United. I hope this will be the case. I do not wish Twenty20 well, though I welcome new funds for cricket and cricketers. I think Twenty20 is a decadent, dumbed-down, third-rate formula for sub-prime cricket. I would not therefore welcome its success.

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