Path to riches

As soon as one of the really big stars ditches his Test contract and declares he will only play T20 cricket in future the rest will gallop after him.

Kevin Pietersen may be the first. Andrew Flintoff is clearly heading in that direction. Both of them have been severely injured by an international programme that is too crowded and remorseless.

There are plenty more in the wings. Sometime soon someone will lay down a new path to riches.

Start as a teenager in county, provincial or state cricket. Progress into the international sides. Establish your reputation and then move over to T20 cricket where the money is bigger, the workload is lighter, the chance of being injured is smaller and the time for recovery is greater.

It is no use the inner circle of cricket elite protesting that Test cricket is the true measure of a player's greatness. That may well be true but in a fast-moving, 21st century sports world the spectator's dollar, the sponsor's mega bucks and television's super cash demand a fast-moving game that can be nearly packaged as an evening's entertainment.

At the moment the gate is only half ajar. But my bet is that long before the next Ashes tour of England the path to T20 will be full of elite stars