Twenty20 in the land of Super Max

Now that a New Zealand team has had its first exposure to Twenty20, the abbreviated form of cricket sweeping England, there will be a high degree of interest in whether New Zealand Cricket is tempted to adopt the game permanently. It does have a match scheduled against Australia in February next year, but on a trial basis only.

Its decision will be illuminating. After all, it was a pioneer in adopting Martin Crowe's Max Cricket, a shortened form of the game that was also of 40 overs duration, but played in 10-over innings in the manner of a normal first-class game.

When it merged with the Australian shortened form of Super Eights, it was played for several seasons as a pre-season appetiser for New Zealand cricket. Initially, there was a league-type structure tailored to Friday-night television audiences, who were being weaned from a winter full of Friday-night rugby and whom satellite-television bean-counters were keen to have maintain their television-user contracts rather than cutting them off for the summer.

Once that format fell out of favour, the game was seen as a way of taking top-flight cricketers into the country regions, probably the greatest benefit of all, as it exposed youngsters to players they would only ever see on television.

The other benefit for New Zealand players was that it provided some much-needed extra income. The game had its own peculiar appeal, as Crowe based the game on the benefits of playing straight, and bowling straight. He incorporated a Max Zone down the ground for the batsman, in which all runs scored were doubled. This, in the best games, resulted in some frenetic finishes where 30 runs off the last over meant you were only three good hits, two twelves and an eight, away from a win.

An international Cricket Max series was even played against England, and there were also matches against West Indies and Pakistan. But the real test will be whether the general public accepts the newer game.

It has clearly been a huge success in England, targeted as it is at the on-their-way-home types who enjoy a drink and some quick cricket. The longer twilight in England at the peak of summer offers other advantages, which could only really be matched in the South Island - and the further south the better - in New Zealand.

It was an indictment of New Zealand society, with its tall-poppy mentality, that much of the criticism of Max Cricket was directed at its founder rather than at the game itself. Crowe, no stranger to the small-mindedness directed at sporting icons in his homeland, was ahead of his time in his thinking about the game. He had some heavyweight stablemates, such as Sir Richard Hadlee, the jogging guru Arthur Lydiard, the champion miler John Walker, and the late Sir Peter Blake, the yachting supremo, who were similarly exposed to petty public attitudes.

There's never been an official announcement on why Super Max fell out of favour, since it was allowed just to fade away. It would be ironic if the New Zealand public was to show the same passion for Twenty20 that has been seen in England, while neglecting a game largely of their own making that had as its target improving areas of weakness in the local game.