Tim Paine makes bold statement on international fixtures

No team has been able to defend the T20 World Cup title and it rang true yet again after defending champions Australia were knocked out from the T20 World Cup at the Super 12 stage of the competition. Australia, defending their tile on their home soil, failed to qualify for the semi-final after rivals England defeated Sri Lanka to end Australian hopes. Former Australian Test skipper Tim Paine has made a bold remark about eliminating “meaningless” international T20 cricket in the future following Australia’s dismal campaign.

Former Australian red ball skipper Tim Paine, who has had a turbulent couple of years, suggested reducing T20 cricket to domestic franchise leagues. He feels that there has been too much international cricket in recent times that no one feels like watching. He reckoned that the crowds are getting smaller which is not a good sign for the game.

“I’ve got some views on T20 cricket, I’d like to see it just franchised all around the world, and then you just play World Cups every four years. I think we play too much meaningless T20 cricket, and we’ve seen this year even in the warm-up games and some other series, no one wants to watch it. You’re getting small crowds to big venues and it just looks bad and then you get to the Big Bash and everyone has seen enough T20, so that’s waning as well,” Paine told SEN’s Sportsday.

The Aussie cricketer suggested the country’s best players participate in the franchise and local leagues in order to improve their selection chances into the national team. Paine wants a reduction in T20Is to make Test cricket the showpiece event for every country, relieving the players of hectic scheduling.

“Get your star players playing in those franchises and their local leagues, then pick your best teams, have a World Cup, and let Test cricket be the centerpiece around it. People want to watch the best players in the country playing in their domestic tournaments, and I think if we took a huge chunk of T20 international cricket out, it opens up time in the calendar for (the Big Bash),” Paine added.