London: Twenty20, once the cheeky, brash upstart of world cricket, firmly joins the establishment from Friday when Lord's stages the opening match of the 2009 world championship.

The shortest form of the game has endured a brief, dramatic and sometimes controversial life ever since it was launched as a radical plan to resuscitate English county cricket in 2003.

"The game in England had been associated with the middle-class and the middle-aged. White males," said Stuart Robertson, who was the England and Wales Cricket Board's marketing manager at the time and credited with being the brains behind the new format.


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