Cricket: Twenty20 format under spotlight in tour opener

Both sides are exercising a note of caution as today's first international men's Twenty20 cricket match is trumpeted by some as the answer to a tired one-day 50-over format.

Australian captain Ricky Ponting saw many positives about the truncated three-hour version in loud 1980s uniforms which opens their New Zealand tour in Auckland at Eden Park at 7pm.

But whether it would develop into regular internationals or remain as just a low key one-off tour opener was up in the air.

"It probably is reliant on how these couple of games go off," Ponting said in his first New Zealand press conference on arrival yesterday.

"I'm sure it will be a great spectacle and a good game of cricket and I'm sure the same will happen in England (when Australia open their Ashes tour with Twenty20 later this year).

"All we can do as players is embrace the game, do the best we can and try to put on the best display of cricket."

For entertainment value it seems a certain winner but for the cricket purist, there may be issues.

It is crammed into 80 minutes of batting per side, 20 overs each of defensive bowling with batsmen of the likes of Adam Gilchrist and Chris Cairns trying to smash every ball over the short Eden Park boundaries.

The game took English county cricket by storm last year with bumper crowds at normally empty venues, with even Lord's, the home of cricket, swamped by a sellout crowd which even included ticket scalpers.

Ponting only played one Twenty20 match during a brief English county sojourn last year and said it would take time to adjust to yet another form of cricket.

"It's hard to tell so far. One thing I do know is that it seems to be very good for cricket around the world," he said, citing the English experience.

But the basics wouldn't change.

"Every player has weaknesses so if you can exploit them in a test match or one-day game, there is no reason you can't do that in a Twenty20 game.

"It's obviously hard work for the bowlers and they could cop some harsh treatment over the course of the game."

One person calling for caution was New Zealand batting great Martin Crowe who said Twenty20 was an ideal low key tour opener, but he preferred to see changes to the 50-over format instead.

He proposed changing the fielding restrictions to four blocks of five overs throughout the innings at the whim of the fielding captain, rather than just the first 15 overs currently used.

"It's just taking away the predictability of one-day cricket and bringing back that uncertainty and giving it a bit more strategy and choice for the captain," Crowe said.

One player who will see both sides of the coin is New Zealand allrounder Scott Styris, who will try to clear the pickets with the bat, as well as stem the run flow with the ball.

He said the hosts were taking the match "very seriously" to try and get a roll on towards the one-day series.

"First and foremost, the goal for us is to win the one-day series and tomorrow's a chance to start getting on top.

"I think in a game like this you have to start off with the mentality you are on a hiding to nothing and then work backwards.

"If you succeed it's because you have bowled well rather than thinking you were going to bowl well, and that getting slogged to all parts is the unexpected."

New Zealand were to name their 12th man today, having last night confirmed spinner Daniel Vettori would rest his sore back ahead of Saturday's first one-day international in Wellington.

- NZPA