Cricket that doesn't miss a beat

Twenty20 Cup: Surrey purr to victory as the game celebrates its shortest form on the longest day

A perfectly reasonable pop concert had to battle for attention here yesterday with three cricket matches. If live modern music is to survive in this country it really has to get its act together.

As it is, the Liverpool girl trio known as Atomic Kitten (older followers of beat music should imagine the Vernons Girls in skimpier gear) could be perceived to be less alluring than the men in garish clothing out in the middle, who were doing something reasonably close to batting and bowling.

Surrey were more alluring than the others. They easily became the inaugural Twenty20 champions, a triumph for which they won £42,000 and bestowed some respect on the event as a cricketing competition. The shortest form of the game might be a lottery where anything goes (regularly, the ball over the boundary) but since Surrey are the most accomplished team in England in the long form of the game it was a fitting triumph. If you can play, you can play.

On a long finals day which lasted for 12 hours and consisted of two semi-finals and a final, Surrey overwhelmed Warwickshire in the concluding match. The champions' outstanding player in the final was Jimmy Ormond who took 4 for 11 in a seriously testing spell of seam and swing bowling. True, it was against batsmen taking risks, but it would not have been out of place on the first morning of a Test match. And Twenty20 is meant to be a batsman's game.

Warwickshire were all out for 115 in 18 overs. The difficulty of playing under lights was not about to come to their aid. Surrey knocked them off in 12.5 overs, losing one wicket. Both Ian Ward and Ali Brown made rapid half centuries ­ 26 and 32 balls respectively. That was what the makers of Twenty20 had in mind.

The lopsidedness of the final was not the climax that was anticipated. The shorter the game, the closer the matches is supposed to be the rule. But it could not erode the jubilation of officials from the England and Wales Cricket Board. They wandered around like corporate fat cats without the bonuses. And why not.

This has been their best idea since overarm bowling and they might persuade a name sponsor, preferably a manufacturer of a fast moving consumer good, to back it next year. The counties have made money from it, though the ECB have probably failed to do so, since they have incurred large expenditure. Atomic Kitten cost £20,000. Safe to say, however, that cricket was the winner.

It was a full house of 15,000, in which old, young, male and female were all reasonably represented, almost as in the real world. Every run was raucously greeted, even before the beer worked its way through. The bowlers were not entirely ignored, even before Ormond's advent, especially in their moments of glory. But they are not the main point of the exercise.

The occasion consisted of three ties. Warwickshire, who had qualified by virtue of being the best second-placed county in the groups, beat Leicestershire in the first semi-final. This was an exciting but not close match, won by the team with the clearest heads and the shrewdest tactics.

Warwickshire were probably expected to win, but Brad Hodge, the Australian all-rounder, played a well-paced innings for the underdogs. He slowed up after reaching his 50 in 38 balls but then it was much more important that he preserved his wicket. The recovery to 162 was insufficient and Warwickshire were never behind the rate.

Surrey then overcame Gloucestershire, one-day kings and general innovators in short forms of the game in a seesaw contest that never quite seesawed enough. By the admission of Surrey's captain, Adam Hollioake, they had to bat and bowl as well as they could because they are not the most dashing of fielding sides. They did not appear to have fulfilled the first part of the bargain after winning the toss.

But they kept in the hunt and when Gloucestershire's foreign contingent ­ the New Zealander, Craig Spearman, the Australian, Ian Harvey and the South African, Jonty Rhodes ­ all departed early not even the defiant efforts of 22-year-old Alex Gidman (61 in 49 balls) were rewarded.

The quality of the cricket almost did not matter. But then, that is also not the point of the exercise. Runs are the thing, scored with regular big hits.

It would be intriguing to see if it could be played without the showbiz. Not that Atomic Kitten have to be there every match, but the players are announced with a stentorian flourish (by the former Big Breakfast presenter, Richard Orford) as though they were all, ladeez and gennulmen, contenders for the heavyweight championship of the world.

In truth, it is hard for them all, but especially for the captains, to keep up. So much to do and so little time. Fielding is vital but sometimes there is simply not the time, or the puff, to get your man into precisely the position in which he ought to be. Lose a wicket and the next man has to be at the crease in an instant. No time to think and those who say it is not a thinking man's game are talking tosh. Perpetual thinking is necessary to decide where and how to gamble next.

Surrey were also able ultimately to play the percentages. As the girls of Atomic Kitten sang, their tide was high and they were number one. By the time Adam Hollioake had lifted the Twenty20 Cup, of course, Atomic Kitten were probably back in Liverpool.