England Veteran Gareth Batty Is Against T20 Leagues

The increasing amount of T20 leagues has somehow vandalised the impact of other formats of the game.

There are large turnouts in the T20 competitions around the world but during the Boxing day Test last year, there were empty seats, which is enough to state the fact that the game is being affected by the cash-rich league’s going around the world.

England spinner Gareth Batty, who made a comeback to Test squad in 2016 after a period of 11 years, is in not much awe of the T20 leagues, as he feels these leagues are killing the ODI cricket as well.

In his column for Standard.co.uk, Batty criticised the increasing amount of T20 cricket around the world and has called for the survival of 50 overs cricket as he wrote,

“I am sceptical about whether there will be two T20 competitions running side by side in the future. I would like 50-over cricket to survive and it is disappointing to hear people say it will fall by the wayside.”

Batty was clearly unhappy with the fact that short heroics during a T20 game has affected the ODI cricket, as he thinks that it’s difficult for a batsman to replicate his T20 show in the 50-over game which needs a bit of longer patience,

“Because of the high totals, I have heard a number of people say that modern 50-over cricket is just an extended T20, but it is far more subtle than that. There are different skills required and, as a captain, different ways of setting your team up. In T20, a batsman can score 20 from 10 balls from anywhere in the order. You’d say okay, he’s not had a nightmare, but in a 50-over game that’s not enough. You have to play longer innings,” Batty added.

After few disagreements, the 39 years old bowler was happy by the fact that Jason Roy, a member of Gujarat Lions has returned to the side for the ODI series against Ireland,

“It’s good to have Jason Roy back at Surrey for most of this month after England’s games against Ireland. Even though he didn’t play much for Gujarat Lions at the IPL, the experience will have done him a lot of good and we hope to reap the rewards at Surrey,” Batty concluded.