Over the years, and more especially over the past decade or so, cricket has systematically attempted to transform itself into a sport that combines fast-paced on-field action with a frenetic off-field entertainment component. The spectator is truly king, and administrators have become focused on accommodating the needs of the audience into the larger dynamics of running the sport. Somewhere along the way, cricket has learnt to seamlessly integrate its historic traditions with a more modern, marketing oriented narrative that not so long ago was anathema.

One upshot of this development is that change now follows a far more rapid cycle. Over a century went by before one day cricket came along to challenge the monopoly of Test cricket; however, it did not take half as long for T20 to emerge as an alternative. The upshot has been that 50-over cricket is now under threat from the T20 format; it is widely argued that the lack of action in the middle overs, when both sides are in