Do you actually like T20 cricket? It’s like any sport: if it’s played well, it’s enjoyable.

So you’d pay to watch it? If you weren’t paid to commentate on it? Ah, well, that’s a difficult question. I’m not sure I’d watch any cricket if I wasn’t commentating. I’m not a great sports watcher. I mean, the only sport I can sit and watch at the ground is baseball. But any other sport, I’d rather be playing than watching. Certainly, that’s the way I’ve always felt. If I’d stopped playing and didn’t commentate, and had a job as a barman or whatever, if I was going to go to the cricket, I’d go along to watch someone. If someone said, “Oh, there’s this young kid called Ponting who looks like he can really bat, or this young leg spinner called Warne who looks alright”, I’d go to the cricket to have a look for myself and make up my own mind whether I thought he could bat or bowl. But to actually sit there and watch all day ... so maybe I would be better suited to a 20-over game. The problem I have with the 20-over game is, I would hate to be a middle-order batsman. Michael Clarke, for instance, in that first World T20 in South Africa; in the whole tournament I think he faced four balls. It takes my mind back to school days. I was fortunate I didn’t have to worry about this, seeing I could play a bit, and you usually opened the batting and opened the bowling, so you’re always in the game. But you think to yourself: it’s no wonder a lot of kids say “stuff cricket” if two guys are out there making all the runs, and the same two guys do most of the bowling, and all I’m doing is running around in the field chasing balls. I can imagine it wouldn’t have been much of a game. If I was a middle-order batsman in T20, and you faced a couple of balls here and there ... and the worst thing is you’re having to come in and try and slog ’em out of the ground and you hit the first one up in the air and you hole out, and then all you do is run around in the field for 20 overs, I’d be thinking to myself, “This ain’t much of a game.”

But what about baseball? You might be lucky to get your bat on the ball in a whole nine innings? Well, I can actually remember saying that to myself. In one of the last one-day international matches I played, I was batting at six and I came in with a dozen balls to go, so I had to get on with it ... I mean, you give your wicket away often enough without being forced to give it away. And I tried to slog one and it went straight up in the air and of course I was caught. And I remember as I was walking off, because television was just starting to come into the game much more, I would always put my gloves up to my mouth because I was usually calling myself all sorts of things, like “you silly bastard”, or something worse. So I put my gloves up to cover my mouth, and I said, “If I wanted to slog every fucking ball, I’d be playing fucking baseball!”