I have watched loads of ODI cricket and have major problems with it. It is monotonous, formulaic and basically gets boring after you have watched it forever. Except important matches, you aren’t usually interested to watch it except in exceptional circumstances or when you have a general mood to watch the cricket and test cricket isn’t on.

Twenty20 on the other hand, you have had a hard day’s work, you go home, can get the satisfaction of watching a cricket match in it’s entirety. It is like a movie versus the book which is test cricket. Nothing beats a good book but when you don’t have the time, a movie can do.

Twenty20 is also not being deceptive. While one day cricket is neither here nor there, Twenty20 is unapologetic about being a short hit fest. You go to either your wife (test cricket) or the prostitute (Twenty20). Why go down the middle path. (No offence to Buddhists) One day cricket is neither here nor there.

A common misonception is that Twenty20 is just wham-bam-thankyou-mam type of cricket. In truth, you have to safeguard your wicket for a few overs. If you go to hit right from the outset, there is a danger of losing 2-4 quick wickets in the first few overs and being on the back foot sooner than you realise. Even in twenty overs, there are periods and you need to structure your innings. Every thing just happens faster but that doesn’t mean that it is just slog-slog-slog.

So I prefer watching Twenty20 to one day cricket basically.

What is concerning about the rule changes in limited overs cricket is how much more batsman friendly it makes it all.

The twenty over field restrictions instead of fifteen means more runs will be scored than ever before. The general feeling is that teams will replace a batsman with a bowler and vice versa while substituing. This would mean the bowling will become more effective.

However, the flip side to it is that chosing an extra batsman keeping the same bowling line up would usually give the team a lot more space to bat freely and treat the bowlers with disdain. And with the twenty over field restrictions in place, it would make around 330 the norm in one day cricket rather than 300.

The new rule changes also go away from the basic aspect of cricket of chosing the best eleven with an oft faced dilemna of whether to chose an extra batsman or play with an extra bowler and the likes. The teams usually have to do a lot fo delibaration in chosing the 11.

The 5 over rule means more confusion than ever before. When you want to attract new people to the game, you want to make things simpler, not make them more complex. And how will Saurav Ganguly, who has problems finishing the overs in time under the earlier rules, ever manage to finish them with all these complexities?

Did I ever take the one day game seriously? No.

Will things get more interesting and worthy now? Not a chance.

Perhaps the ICC’s defence would be that the fools watching cricket will continue to watch it no matter what they do and with a few quirks like increasing the over restrictions for the fields, the 5 over rule and substitues, it would keep the couch patota from switching the channels in the middle overs, thus ensuring more revenue.

But do you really want to change the rules so much that the game itself changes? Its silly.