The primary formally recognised T20s had been virtually three months away from being performed when Australia hammered India within the 2003 males’s World Cup ultimate on the Wanderers.
Ten county groups lined up on the Oval and in Worcester, Taunton, Southampton and Chester-le-Road to start a contest whose very identify now sounds old style: the Twenty20 Cup.
When Ricky Ponting’s undefeated 140 set the Aussies up for a thumping 125-run win, cricket was virtually 14 months away from its first T20I. That was a girls’s match between England and New Zealand at Hove in August 2004. It took males greater than six months to catch up; New Zealand met Australia at Eden Park in February 2005.
As these 10 county XIs took to these 5 grounds to play the primary correct T20s, we had been virtually 5 years — 1,772 days — from seeing Praveen Kumar, within the colors of the workforce then known as Bangalore Royal Challengers, bowl the primary ball of the primary match of the primary IPL to Kolkata Knight Riders’ Sourav Ganguly on the Chinnaswamy on April 18 2008.
And right here we’re, greater than 18 years after that momentous date, considering a recreation far faraway from what it was in 2003. Up to now eliminated that T20 itself is beginning to look dated in a world that has made room for T10 and The Hundred.
Kagiso Rabada was eight on the time of the 2003 World Cup. It’s a joyously glad accident that considered one of recreation’s most interesting quick bowlers has grown into his stellar profession within the midst of the most important growth in cricket historical past. Ought to he assist South Africa win the 2027 World Cup, which will probably be performed in his nation, Zimbabwe and Namibia in October and November subsequent yr, he would leap a number of locations up the pecking order of all-time greats from wherever. How had he seen cricket change since 2003?
“There’s a wider viewers; that’s the obvious issue,” Rabada informed reporters. “And a much bigger number of gamers. Folks of various ethnicities are enjoying and supporting the sport. There’s extra money within the recreation and extra groups.”
Hashim Amla is a part of a era 11 years older than Rabada’s. He had performed 16 first-class matches, 9 checklist A video games and no T20s — and never a single of his 349 senior internationals — when the 2003 World Cup ended. How has cricket modified for him since then?
“The sport has developed a lot,” Amla informed Cricbuzz.“It’s been accelerated.”
It has and it hasn’t. Thirty-three centuries have been scored within the 68 males’s ODIs performed this yr earlier than Thursday (August 13). A strike price increased than Ponting’s 115.70 has been recorded in solely 10 of them. However the entire of 2003 yielded 58 lots of from 147 ODIs. If the centuries preserve coming on the 2026 price, we’ll see 71.34 in 147 ODIs this yr — 13 and a bit greater than in 2003.
Surprisingly for an out-and-out batter whose bowling would have roused worldwide cricket’s chucking police had he dare deploy it extra typically than for 54 Take a look at deliveries, Amla wished the bowlers effectively for subsequent yr’s event: “I hope the situations give them extra to provide us a present and make the video games extra shut.”
Amla on the 2027 World Cup: ‘It might be our prime time to win it’ ©Getty
All of 829 ODIs have been performed since Amla earned his final cap within the format on the 2019 World Cup in England and Wales. Regardless of that he stays, famously, the quickest batter to succeed in 3,000, 4,000, 6,000 and seven,000 runs in ODIs.
Simply as famously, or infamously, South Africa didn’t win any of the three World Cups through which he performed. Neither did they recover from the road in any of the opposite six World Cups they contested. Nor in any of their 10 T20 World Cups, three of which featured Amla. The closest they’ve come to claiming the latter trophy was in Barbados in June 2024, once they misplaced the ultimate to India by seven runs. Even so, Amla was optimistic about their probabilities subsequent yr.
“The Take a look at workforce are the champions, they’ve obtained near successful the T20 World Cup and so they’re virtually there within the ODI World Cup,” he mentioned. “Hopefully having the World Cup at house is their second.
“It might be our prime time to win it.Think about, after all of the disappointments of earlier World Cups, successful it at dwelling. That might be an enormous enhance for cricket and for the nation basically.”
Rabada aimed his tall gaze past cricket: “I simply need the followers to have enjoyable, and for individuals coming to South Africa to get pleasure from it.And to not solely go to Cape City. There’s rather more to South Africa than simply going to Cape City.”
Identical to there’s rather more to South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia than cricket. Like nationwide pleasure, which the Namibians would have felt once they performed their inaugural World Cup match towards Zimbabwe in Harare on February 10, 2003. On the identical day Zimbabweans would have felt real patriotism — not the flag-waving, anthem-singing, pretend type — when Andy Flower and Henry Olonga took the sector carrying black armbands to “mourn the loss of life of democracy in our beloved” nation.
Rumours of democracy’s resurrection in Zimbabwe have been enormously exaggerated. Democracy has a tenuous toehold in South Africa, which is extensively recognised as probably the most unequal nation on the planet. However, in Namibia, democracy appears to have been puttering alongside seamlessly because it was established in March 1990.
That’s virtually 10 years after Zimbabwe took the identical step and greater than 4 years after South Africa. A lot has modified. However little appears to have moved in males’s World Cup phrases in Africa since 2003, the one time the event has been performed on the continent. Till October and November subsequent yr, that’s. Then we’ll see how far T20 — together with T10 and The Hundred — has pushed cricket’s boundaries right here.
