IN LESS THAN A week's time, we shall know just how well cricket has embraced the brave new world.

When Twenty20 cricket was first pioneered in 2003 as a way to revive domestic cricket in England, the skeptics scoffed, dismissing it as a hit-and-giggle game that would fizzle out once the initial enthusiasm waned. But such has been the growth in interest in the format the world over that South Africa is now poised to host the first World Cup, mere months after Australia clinched the one-day international version in the Caribbean.

Stuart Robertson, a former marketing manager with the England and Wales Cricket Board [ECB] is credited with having invented the concept, and it was quickly embraced by other countries like South Africa, Pakistan and Australia as well.

Allen Stanford, a Texas-based billionaire, created his own version in the Caribbean, an inter-island competition with upcoming players that was designed to try and get West Indian cricket out of the doldrums.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India [BCCI], the commercial nerve-centre of the world game, was slow on the uptake though. With one-day international games in India regularly sold out, the BCCI saw no need to experiment with the new format, and it was only after India's disastrous World Cup exit that the first competition was held, with Tamil Nadu turning out winners.

So much for history though. After dismal attendances at some of the World Cup games, the ICC needs this event to be an unqualified success. With cricket trying to enhance its global profile, failure is not even an option.

And while it's unlikely that the hardcore cricket lover will give up on Test cricket or the one-day version in favourite of the pot-noodle variety, there's little doubt that Twenty20 is the perfect vehicle as cricket looks to expand its horizons.

Football, the global game, doesn't need such gimmicks, being the sport of choice in most countries across the world. But other sports have taken the expansion gospel quite seriously, with rugby leading the way.

The rugby World Cup, which starts in a couple of days, will be watched by more people than ever before, and for that you have to credit the Sevens game, which popularised the sport in places like Dubai.

Even American Football has joined in, and for the first time, a regular season game featuring the New York Giants will be played in London. Fans of the real football will tell you though that the first attempt to explore virgin territory had taken place 30 years earlier, when Warner Brothers' Steve Ross created a star-studded New York Cosmos team with legends like Pele, Franz Beckenbauer and Giorgio Chinaglia. For a while, the Cosmos played to packed crowds at Yankee Stadium, but once the bubble burst in the early 1980s, it took more than a decade for US football to revive.

So, is cricket in such trouble that it needs Twenty20?

In a word, yes.

Test matches will always be for the purist. For those with a 9 to 5 job, attending one is not even an option. As for one-day cricket, with just three or four outstanding teams in the fray, the endless merry-go-round of matches has resulted in a degree of spectator fatigue.

Most fans simply don't want to see a seven-match or five-match one-day series, especially when the teams happen to be hopelessly mismatched. Rightly, most see it as greed on the part of administrators who look only at the bottom line.

Also, even a day-night game lasts seven hours. Someone wanting to watch all of it would necessarily have to skip work in the afternoon, and especially in the subcontinent, employers are especially wary on days when there's a match on.

A Twenty20 game, by contrast, lasts just three hours, about as long as a baseball match, and the big hitting and wickets falling in a heap can be hugely exciting for someone who's enthusiasm for the game is fairly new.

NOT EVERY ONE is a believer though. In an interview to Inside Sport earlier this year, Greg Chappell, who was then India's coach, minced no words when asked what he thought of Twenty20. 'I think it's one of the greatest dangers to the health of cricket,' he said. 'One of the reasons cricket attracts more money than most sports is because even the shortest version of our game is on TV for seven or eight hours. The income that can be earned from that is commensurately higher than the two or three-hour stint that most other sports get. For us to try and replicate what they're doing by shortening our game, if it's successful, would seriously eat into the health of 50-over cricket, which is the money-making machine of the game.

'Twenty20 is an ideal game for domestic cricket. It's a version that can be used as a beachhead into non-traditional cricket countries, but should be used sparingly at international level.'

His brother, Ian, who played a pivotal role in the Kerry Packer-led World Series Cricket revolution in the 1970s, has equally trenchant views.

In his latest column on Cricinfo, the world's leading cricket website, he wrote: 'There is so much fifty over cricket played and yet so few of these games are linked in a meaningful way that player staleness is the greatest contributing factor to the game taking on a repetitive air. The obvious answer is less meaningless games and more matches that are linked to a prestige tournament involving only the stronger nations.'

According to Chappell, asking the same players to turn out in each format of the game will only result in a dilution in performance.

'Rather than utilise one of the shorter forms of the game for the development and promotion of potential new stars, the current headliners are being wheeled out at every opportunity,' he writes.  'To properly develop a players' technique to the point where he can perform in a skilful and entertaining manner in any form of cricket, he needs time in the middle when he is young. Therefore he needs to regularly play longer forms of the game to develop into an international cricketer.'

That was Greg's point too. 'The shorter the game becomes, the more hitting is involved,' he said. 'I don't think it has a place at international level. It won't help the development of young players.'

It is a matter of great concern in Asia, where young cricketers come into the side, do well for a while and then disappear once reality starts to bite. And if the evolution of Twenty20 has shown anything, it's that there's certainly a place for those with a sound batting technique.

The thrash merchants come off from time to time, but it's Ricky Ponting, the world's best batsman, who holds the record for the highest score in a Twenty20 international, 98 from 55 balls. 

THERE WILL BE 12 teams competing for the biggest prize in the southern cape, and the first-round groups have thrown up some nasty match-ups.

In Group A, South Africa, the hosts, take on West Indies, and there's also the small matter of a score to settle with Bangladesh, who thrashed them during the World Cup in Guyana.

South Africa have plenty of experience in this format, but the big-hitting West Indian and the cavalier young Bangladeshi batsmen should certainly test them.

Group B sees a resumption of the Ashes rivalry, with hapless Zimbabwe making up the numbers. The Australians have prepared in typically thorough fashion as they aim to complete a hat-trick [kings of the castle in Tests and one-day internationals, Twenty20 would make the full set], while some of the English could be fatigued after a grueling summer of cricket back home.

Kenya are rank outsiders in Group C, which reunites the two teams that played out a World Cup semi-final at Sabina Park in Jamaica in April. Sri Lanka triumphed on that occasion, with Mahela Jayawardene making a brilliant hundred, but the depth of all-round talent at New Zealand's disposal should make this a fascinating contest.

Most eyes, especially in this part of the world though, will be on Group D, where India and Pakistan square off, with lowly Scotland the third side.

Pakistan, who have played the game domestically for a couple of seasons now, should have the edge, but will have to be on top of their game to progress further from a Super Eight group that will include Australia.

India are very much babes in the Twenty20 cricket woods. They have played just one international, at the Wanderers in Johannesburg last December, a thrilling low-scoring game that they won by four wickets after star turns from Zaheer Khan and Dinesh Karthik.

For India, the tournament also marks their first adventure without the big three - Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly - who pulled out long before the squad was announced. It was a wise decision, given the need for athletic young fielders, but the batting might now be especially reliant of Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag and Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who captains the side.

The pitches at Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg will certainly favour teams like Australia and South Africa, whose batsmen play the steeply bouncing ball much better than their Asian counterparts. With more tall fast bowlers in their squads, they will doubtless enjoy bowling on those surfaces as well.

But after the humiliation of the Champions Trophy last year in India [no Asian team in the last four] and the World Cup [only Sri Lanka made it to the semi-finals], Asia's finest need to stand up and be counted, and prove that they're not soft touches in the face of pace.

The specialist

ADAM Hollioake, who captained Surrey, was one of the early masters of the format. Having spent his formative years in Australia, Hollioake then played for England, briefly captaining the one-day side in the late 1990s.

In the first two seasons of domestic Twenty20 cricket, he was leading wicket-taker. He also thumped some quick runs, and led by example in the field as Surrey took the inaugural trophy and then finished runners-up.

Where other counties focussed on damage limitation, especially when bowling, Surrey were relentlessly aggressive, going for wickets and hitting fours and sixes with Žlan.

Since then, most teams have unearthed a specialist or two. South Africa have three in Johan van der Wath, Albie Morkel and Gulam Bodi.

Van der Wath is an accurate quick bowler who can also belt the ball a long way, while Morkel does a similar job albeit at medium pace. Bodi, whose family moved to South Africa from Hathuran in Gujarat when he was a child, bowls spin, and is a powerful strokeplayer at the top of the order.

Australia had a specialist in Cameron White, the leg spinner with a penchant for whacking the ball huge distances. But despite enjoying a fine season with Somerset, he hasn't found a place in the squad, with Australia sticking mostly to the group of players that went through the World Cup unbeaten. If anything, they're strengthened by the return of Brett Lee. 

Missing in Action 

INDIA'S BATTING trinity opted out, while Brian Lara chose his exit from the game at the end of the World Cup.

Inzamam-ul-Haq and Mohammad Yousuf have been lost to the fledgling Indian Cricket League, while the omission of Jacques Kallis has generated fierce debate in South Africa.

Muttiah Muralitharan has pulled out with a shoulder injury, and there's also no place for Michael Vaughan in the England squad. And after more than a decade of leading New Zealand brilliantly, Stephen Fleming has been overlooked by New Zealand. 

Also watch for...

GIMMICKS like cheerleaders dancing during the mid-innings break, not to mention on-field innovations like the free hit.

If a bowler bowls a no-ball, the next delivery is a free hit, where the batsman can only be dismissed run out. It's not cricket, say the purists, but the crowds seem to lap it up.