Not known to many, professional Twenty20 cricket began in a "spirit of ignorance, innocence and sheer bedlam". The first match, played at The Oval cricket ground in London, between Surrey and Middlesex, on a sultry evening in June 2003, was deliberately meant to be far removed from the "socially inaccessible" reputation that the gentlemanly sport had earned itself. Where one would have expected an audience that came dressed in suits and ties, and flowing floral dresses, evenings at the cricket, now became "about pitchside Jacuzzis, bouncy castles, cheerleaders, speed dating and copious alcohol, with the cricket itself incidental." "In many ways, the point of T20 was to make people forget they were watching cricket at all," UK-based Tim Wigmore and Freddie Wilde, share in a new book, Cricket 2.0: Inside the T20 Revolution Penguin Random House that has released on Kindle.

Through this book, the authors attempt to understand how this shortened format, initially intended to be all fun and games, gave cricket such a big boost, that it not only rescued the sport, which was losing its sheen outside the Indian subcontinent, but also changed the lives of many sportspersons. "Across the sporting world, a lot of games have tried to reinvent themselves—be it baseball to basketball, golf and tennis, everyone has experimented with making matches shorter in recent years. But no one has reinvented themselves nearly as effectively as cricket, thanks to T20," says Wigmore, a journalist specialising in cricket and sports analytics, in an email interview. He adds, "T20-s gift to cricket has been to increase its overall popularity and the size of the fanbase worldwide. Cricket is in a much better position now."