Surrey batsman Ali Brown told Cricket AM that he believes Twenty20 cricket is the way forward.
Everyone loves Twenty20 says Ali Brown
Surrey batsman Ali Brown told
Cricket AM that Twenty20 cricket is the way forward.
Nicknamed 'Lordy' in allusion to Ted Baxter, because of his incredible big hitting, Brown revealed there's nothing better than the buzz of playing the limited overs game.
"I enjoy Twenty20 mainly because it means you can get up a bit later!" He Said. "My kids get up very early so it's nice to get them out of the way and off to school and then actually have a bit of time to yourself before you go in.
"But Twenty20 is great - you play in front of full houses and it's got to be the way forward."
Brown, who has scored almost one thousand runs in Twenty20 matches, believes that nothing quite gets the adrenalin pumping for both players and spectators than this form of cricket.
"Everyone wants to play in front of big crowds. I think when you first come on staff you want to play for Surrey or whatever other county and then you want to play for England and of course the big crowds come with that.
"And Twenty20 brings that to you for a month and I think everyone just loves it. All your friends start phoning up wanting tickets, everyone's there and it's the competition to be in."
"It's the most enjoyable to play because it's an hour and a quarter and then the batting's done and similar with the fielding! But it's a great thing for the young kids as well because you see lots of shots, lots of wickets and action and everyone loves to play it."
Relaxed
After formally being introduced in 2003 the first Twenty20 Cup final was contested by Brown's Surrey Lions and Warwickshire's Bears.
Surrey ran out comfortable winners in the end and a year later they were in the final again, this time against Middlesex in the first Twenty20 game to be held at Lords.
It attracted a crowd of 26,500, the largest attendance for any county cricket game other than a one-day final since 1953 and although Surrey ended up on the losing side they had clearly made their mark on the new format of the game.
"We were just very relaxed," said Brown. "No one knew quite what it was going to be like. Adam Hollioake was in charge of our team then and it was very laid back.
"It was like let's just have a few net sessions, let's all play aggressive cricket and let's not fear failure. We didn't put any pressure on ourselves to do well.
"We thought we had some good one day players; we didn't necessarily have the best one day technique, but we had some good individuals and Twenty20 gave them a good place to shine."
