T20 slowly but surely spreads its tentacles...

"Pakistan have to score 2 runs off the last ball to qualify. Indian quickie Samit Dravid charges in and delivers the ball....it's a good yorker and goes straight through big hitting Suleiman Khan to keeper Aryan Khan. The batsmen run desperately to force a bowl out but the Pakistan dream ends as Aryan hits the stumps. India were already out of the main event and now in their final qualifying match they have shut their arch rivals out of the 2031 T20 world Cup at Italy.

These are strange scenes. Both teams look gloomy after the match. This is the 2nd consecutive time that no sub continent team other than Sri Lanka has qualified amongst the final 32 for the world Cup. It is so tragic for the millions of cricket loving people in these two countries that even the presence of big ATL* stars like Suleiman, Samit and Arjun Tendulkar could not help them break the jinx. Another two years of painful wait has already begun..."

A futuristic bad dream? Not really....

Some things like Indo-Pak rivalry will never change but the famous sub-continent needle has every possibility of decaying into a clash of the minnows in another two decades if Twenty20 has its tentacled way across the global marke and if subcontinent cricketers are not smart enough to keep pace.

I can hear a few curses for the sad ending at the qualifiers there. Come on, it can happen in ball games with 32 teams playing in the showpiece event. Take the following piece of information as a message of hope: France failed to qualify for two world cups (1990 and 1994) but then won the next one at home. Of course, that was in soccer which would be ranked second after cricket as a global sport in 1930.

So we can still expect India to win the 2033 T20 world cup at Tibet (T20 world cups come every two years). Perhaps they will manage to overcome pre-tournament odds even higher than 66-1. That would be a nice way to celebrate 50 years completion of Indian cricket's first world cup win.

* ATL is American T20 League