India's first Twenty20 International Match.Australia and England first started what is called as International
cricket. So, the first ever International test match was played from
15th March 1877 at Melbourne. Then after nearly 11 years later, South
African joined in when they played their first ever Test Match against
England at Port Elizabeth from 12th March 1988...
Then, after 51 years of International test matches, West Indies joined by playing their first ever test match against England at Lords from 23rd of June - 1928. Next was New Zealand in 1930 (first ever test against England), THEN it was India who joined International cricket by playing one off test match against England at Lords from 25th of June, 1932...... India lost their first ever test match by 158 runs with only half century coming from No. 9 batsmen L Amar Singh. Here's that scorecard if you need.. Then Pakistan joined in 1952 by playing their first ever test match against India at Delhi from 16th October. Indian team crushed them by an Innings and 70 runs..!! Then It was Sri Lanka in 1981, Zimbabwe in 1992 and lastly, Bangladesh in 2000. If we convert these dates into number of years,  it took 11 years for third team to
join International cricket, 51 years for the fourth, 53 for the fifth,
55 years for sixth, 75 for seventh, 104 years for eighth, 115 for ninth
and 123 for the tenth..So why am I telling you all this past - BECAUSE I WANT TO PROVE THAT CRICKET WAS SLOW IN THOSE DAYS. And so was the development. But now it has changed completely. I can lay down similar chart for ODI cricket and prove that Countries joined in lot faster for this format of cricket. But lets skip that. What I want to concentrate here is on Twenty20 cricket matches. Till date, only six countries have played Twenty20 cricket at International level but very soon, it will change. The biggest hurdle in Twenty20 cricket go be International was India. Indian Board - BCCI were the last to say yes to 20-20 of cricket but now when they finally have said yes... So, when will Indian team play their first ever Twenty20 International match.. Well, the answer is on 1st December 2006 against South Africa at Wanderers stadium in Johannesburg. Indian team is scheduled to go on a tour of South Africa in November and that is when they first ever time will taste the flavour of 20-20 cricket matches. This will be just one off 20/20 cricket match between India and South African, the country which will also host the first ever World Cup of Twenty20 in 2007. This first ever Twenty20 International match for India will mean that the biggest population (almost 60% World Wide) will be attracted and that is when Twenty20 will get global. Twenty20 is a format of cricket which is played for last 4 years in England's County cricket and has been a huge success. More information on this 20/20 match like Live telecast, timing and tickets. Related Articles |