SUDDEN DEATH IN CRICKET

Bowl-out......another term added to the cricket lexicon as the Twenty20 World Cup captures our imagination. A slam-bang opening match between West Indies and South Africa, Australia caught napping by Zimbabwe in a thriller, Bangladesh showing West Indies the door and now the India-Pakistan clash bringing bowl-out into public consciousness.

Here's excitement and uncertainty, so lacking in the disaster of a World Cup earlier this year in the longer version of the game (yes, it's time to do unto one-day cricket what ODI did for test cricket). The shorter duration does make it more of a level-playing field, as weaker sides don't have a mountain to climb and can topple a bigwig in a short burst.

It may be more of entertainment and less of cricket, more of power and less of elegance, more of instant action and less of endurance - in short, hit and giggle cricket, with a penalty shootout thrown in. But the bottomline is - it's quick-fix viewer-friendly entertainment and takes away the predictability of a 50-over match in the middle overs, with the field spread out and the batsmen ekeing out singles.

As India and Pakistan sparred in the bowl-out, it was just like a France vs Italy World Cup final or the India vs Australia final in Chak De India. The one difference, nobody to block the ball from hitting the stumps, like a goalkeeper in hockey or football. It seemed like a weird joke at first glance, but an enjoyable one.

Only that the joke is on all the three Pakistan bowlers who failed to knock down a set of open stumps. It's no consolation, but those who shied at the stumps in the only other bowl-out instance fared worse. Shockingly in the 2006 clash between New Zealand and West Indies, the first six bowlers - 12 balls - failed to record one strike.