ICC World Twenty20 2010 - a new revolution for Cricket fans

As soon as the IPL juggernaut reaches its summit by the end of April 2010, the players of different teams who are playing in the IPL would be raring to meet once again but now in a different avatar - ICC World Twenty20. It would be as representative of their national teams and the valuable experience that IPL would provide would come in good stead for the players who are playing in IPL.

Pakistani fans might feel short changed that there country could remain champions only for 10 months, while India had the trophy for more the full term.

So, is there a sinister conspiracy against Pakistan on this count? Well, on the face of it may appear like that but scratch beneath the surface and the truth would come out in stark clarity.

Let's put the things in perspective. ICC T20 World Cup in its genesis was envisaged as a tournament where the teams would play against each other every two years, but between the first and second World Cup the periodicity could not be maintained. It so happened, that Pakistan got mired in terrorist attacks and the second chapter of the tournament that was supposed to be conducted in Pakistan was postponed to a later date.

It had become a prestige issue for Pakistan that it could not organize an international sporting event, as it wanted to use it to demonstrate to the World that it had indeed arrived. But the militants did not want it to have it that way. The day light attack on the Sri Lankan players during a course of the test match was the flash point and ICC had to look for an alternate venue. South Africa stepped in and second chapter of T20 could be held there after being postponed for quite a long time.

It was no fault of ICC that the tournament got postponed as holding the second chapter of the tournament in itself had become questionable but for the timely intervention by South Africa who agreed to hold the tournament.

Besides, there was no sense in having the another tournament within six months in West Indies, therefore it was christened as World T20 after being rescheduled and rechristened by the same name, and in the bargain ICC also got another tournament. Fitting tribute was that Pakistan won it and could restore some of their cricketing pride in the eyes of the cricketing fans as also in the eyes of the cricketing fraternity around the world.