It will be hard for the inaugural World Twenty20 tournament, which opens in Johannesburg on Tuesday, not to put this year’s lamentable World Cup to shame.

This event should be everything the one in the Caribbean was not – and therefore hasten the march towards 20-over cricket becoming the sport’s dominant short form. At 14 days long rather than 47, it will be blessedly concise. At 20 overs per side rather than 50, there should be few dull passages of play. And with only four rather than eight minnows taking part (Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Scotland), there should be few chronic mismatches.

Ticket prices have been slashed to bring back the masses who were so brutally cold-shouldered at the World Cup. With the most expensive seats for the final on September 24 costing £11 rather than £149, as was the case in Barbados in March, grounds should be full rather than three-quarters empty. The opening game between South Africa, the hosts, and West Indies has long been a 35,000 sellout.

Even the officials who made such a hash of the World Cup final in Bridgetown’s dusk have been banished in disgrace. Sports administrators are often slow to learn from their mistakes, but this time cricket’s rulers appear determined to prove to the world that, were they to be presented with a brewery and some party invitations, they could indeed organise the desired knees-up.

Mindful of the cheerless corporatism of the World Cup, the South Africans are intent on maintaining a sense of carnival. Spectators will be allowed to enter the venues - in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban – armed with their own umbrellas, deckchairs and food, rather than frisked for products that rival those of the main sponsors.

At Tuesday’s opening, described by organisers as a celebration rather than a ceremony, 20,000 musical “bang-sticks” will be handed out, along with hard hats to protect the crowd from the anticipated downpour of sixes. Twenty20 cricket, introduced to the professional game only four years ago, has been such a huge hit around the world that the 50-over game might need a hard hat if its reputation is to withstand this assault from its smaller sibling.

Fortunately for traditional one-day cricket, it still throws up the occasional terrific contest, as England and India have just demonstrated. Both teams barely have a chance to catch breath after such a humdinger of a series. While the other teams are already practising in South Africa, they fly out of London tonight and must play their first games on Thursday. Their introductions may be gentle - England play Zimbabwe, while India meet Scotland – but within 24 hours they will be into the fray with their greatest foes, respectively Australia and Pakistan.

This scheduling could result in both of them going through from the first phase (which consists of four groups of three teams, each containing a minnow) as second qualifiers and into Group E, where they may find South Africa and New Zealand waiting for them. From there, it could be tough for either to reach the semi-finals.

England might fancy their chances of beating an Indian side without Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, all of whom asked not to be selected, but the other two teams - who beat them soundly in the World Cup and are good fielders – might be tougher nuts to crack.

The one advantage England have over all sides in this event is experience: they have played more Twenty20 matches between them than anyone else. But whereas their 300-plus appearances in domestic and international Twenty20 combined dwarfs the tallies of West Indies (a mere 62 Twenty20 games between 15 players), Sri Lanka (104) and India (116), South Africa (274) are not far behind. Domestic Twenty20 is already big in the host country, and several South Africans have gained further experience of the 20-over game in English county cricket – among them Graeme Smith, the captain, who led Somerset to the Twenty20 Cup in 2005, Justin Kemp, Albie Morkel, Morne Morkel and Johan van der Wath.

New Zealand haven’t played a lot of Twenty20 - 147 appearances between them - and they are without Stephen Fleming, who has retired from one-dayers and handed over the captaincy to Daniel Vettori, but they have always shown their esprit de corps in the one-day game. They possess formidable hitters in Brendon McCullum, Jacob Oram, Scott Styris and Craig McMillan; a wicket-taking new-ball bowler in Shane Bond; and two capable spinners in Vettori and Jeetan Patel.

Slow bowling has proved an essential defensive weapon in Twenty20. It is an area that may let down South Africa, who have plumped for an unknown off-spinner, Thandi Tshabalala, and England, who are gambling on Chris Schofield and Jeremy Snape replicating their county form on a more unforgiving stage. For this event, India have preferred Harbhajan Singh to Ramesh Powar as Piyush Chawla’s partner.

For all their immersion in domestic Twenty20, England’s prospects are being overstated. Big tournaments are won not by the young and the merely promising, but by the super-gifted and battle-hardened, and England simply have too few of this type of player in peak condition. Andrew Flintoff is physically and mentally a feeble shadow of the player he once was, Kevin Pietersen is jaded and Paul Collingwood has been on the road longer than he can care to remember.

Conventional wisdom states that the shorter the game, the more chance there is of an upset, but it would be a surprise if one of the minnows won a game - Bangladesh, the likeliest giant-slayers, face West Indies on a fast, bouncy pitch at the Wanderers that won’t suit them - and a surprise if Australia, even without the retired Glenn McGrath and the injured Shaun Tait, didn’t walk off with the spoils again.

Twenty20 is primarily a batsman’s game, and Australia’s top seven, with more shots to hand than a vodka bar, look too potent. In Andrew Symonds, with a strike-rate approaching 200, they have perhaps the most dangerous batsman in the tournament. Sri Lanka, the second-best team at the World Cup, will be lively contenders, but will surely miss Muttiah Muralitharan; West Indies will show flashes of brilliance, but may be let down by their habitual sloppiness; and Pakistan, who left out Mohammad Yousuf and Inzamam-ul-Haq and have sent home the oft-disgraced Shoaib Akhtar after a dressing-room fight, may be simply too indisciplined to last even a 14-day sprint under Geoff Lawson, their new coach.