The future game is T20 : Andrew Strauss

England opening batsman Andrew Strauss has no doubt that the Twenty20 is the game of the future especially after watching both semi-finals and the final of the Twenty20 Cup last Saturday.
"There is no doubt about this form of the game being the future, and if ever you are going to get a new audience watching cricket, this is the vehicle to get you there," Strauss wrote in The Telegraph on Sunday.
It is hard to describe how pleased I am for everyone at Middlesex to see the club come through some very difficult moments, and lift silverware for the first time in 15 years. Clearly there has been a huge amount of work done both on and off the field to get the team performing, but in the end this success belongs to the players who went out there on finals day and did the business under a weight of pressure that most had not experienced before, he added.
The finals day was a triumph, both for the organisation of the event, and the nail-biting drama that the shortest form of the game delivered.
I have to say that I was extremely jealous watching proceedings from my living room as my team-mates were showering each other with champagne. I would have loved to be there, but this was their day.
What you see is what you get, and it doesn't pretend to match the intrigue of a brilliant television drama or a finely balanced Test match. Also it can make stars out of people whom very few have heard of previously. Take Graham Napier or Tyron Henderson.
In the same way the X Factor winners come out of nowhere to collect fat recording contracts and VIP entry into London's trendiest nightclubs, so the new Twenty20 specialists are creating interest, not just from the media, but from success-hungry franchise owners from the IPL, he added.
I am sure that those in charge of TV programming have had to ask themselves some difficult questions over the past few years.
Are reality shows really entertainment? Are they educating people? Do people enjoy watching them? Regardless of the answers to the first two questions, the reply to the final question is undoubtedly 'yes'. Viewing figures for reality shows have been incredible, and only recently have shown any signs of reducing. Twenty20 seems to be following the same path.
Plenty was made about Alastair Cook and myself not being available for the game, with most people in the media feeling that one or two Twenty20 games were unlikely to stretch us all that much, and thus we should have played.
The reality of the situation was that Peter Moores felt strongly that after two gruelling Tests, and with back-to-back games ahead, it would have been wrong for us to play on the day. It was one of the more difficult situations that we have faced as players, because both Alastair and I would have loved to be at what is fast becoming the premier day in the county calendar.
The problem with us playing, though, was not just about being tired. Over the four days that we had free after the Headingley Test, I was able to do a number of batting sessions designed to get me right for the next Test. Time will tell how fruitful those sessions were, but if I had been playing on finals day, those sessions would have had to have been based around Twenty20 cricket.
As a member of the Test side it was my responsibility to make sure that I was as prepared as possible for the final two matches of the summer, and playing Twenty20 is probably not the best way to do that. That is why the coach pulled us out.