The new captain, Kumar Sangakkara has said (for reasons known only to him) that Twenty-20 cricket is the next best thing since sliced bread. Although his bread is thickly spread with ‘IPL butter’, one has to listen to him.

T-20 matches are basically spectator oriented run making bashes with some glitter, glitzy music and glamour girls thrown in. Runs and run-making are in. Bowlers and bowling are cannon fodder for the batsmen.

No one told the bowlers about this plan and it is both poignant and poetic justice that bowlers, especially spinners are not fodder in T20 matches they are supposed to be; they have restricted run rates and won matches.

The reporting of T-20 matches are salivatory accounts of the run bashing. Not many have asked if the run making is effective? T20 batsmen constantly face choices between an orthodox stroke or the legside "hoick"; between the "quick fix" hit for six or the fortitude to accumulate and build scores.

Do T-20 batsmen always make the right or rational stroke making choices? Do they play the strokes that are the most effective match winning choices? From looking at the IPL matches any discerning observer can see that the answer to both questions is ‘no’.

What targets T-20 batsmen had to reach and what they have actually scored. In all international T-20 matches before 2008 the average target score was only 158 (7.93 runs per over); from 1st Jan 2008 this dropped to 138 (6.87 runs per over). These figures are based on Cricinfo stats.

In the recent IPL tournament, the average score was 150 (run rate of 7.48 runs per over). In the semi finals the run rates were around 7.5 runs and in the IPL final the target score was only 143 (run rate of 7.2 runs). The runner up team even failed to reach this score!

Ask some of the greats of cricket ( Greenidge, Sobers, Richards, G. Pollock, Miandad, the brothers Chapple) what would they have scored in the T20 format the answer would have been at least 200 (10 runs per over). And they would have done so without slogging.

What have T20 batsmen actually scored in chasing these modest targets in world T-20 and IPL matches?

In IPL 2009 the average run rate for the first over was only 5.6 runs and the run rate for overs 1 to 5 was 7.1 runs.

In the eight middle overs (7 to 14) the average runs scored were 6.72 runs per over and no over averaged eight runs or more.

In the final five overs the average runs scored were 9.1 runs per over and no over had a run rate of 10 runs or more.

What do these numbers show? Frankly they show some pretty dismal batting despite all the ballyhoo from the franchise owners and the ‘high octane’ media.

There has been many segments in Test matches when openers have achieved over five runs per over: Gordon Greenidge’s savage onslaught on the English bowlers in 1976; Kris Srikanth’s against the WI fast bowlers come to mind and the Australians: Slater and Hayden heralded their country’s fast run rates in Tests.

The first over had 38 dismissals (world T20 average is 13). This shows that openers were too attacking (or slogging), with scant regard to preserve their wicket, or were not focused on accumulating early runs then accelerating later on. These are the twin requirements of openers; otherwise the middle order is exposed.

Batsmen with the full repertoire of strokes were dismissed slogging throughout the IPL. In the Final, Gilchrist was bowled by a straight ball from Kumble when he tried to slog it over midwicket. This was the third ball of the innings.

Kallis, the superb strokemaker hit a glorious lofted on-drive boundary and was out next ball hoicking to leg. Pandey, the wonderfully gifted 19-year-old batsman was out soon after slogging instead of driving.

Van der Merwe followed, charging down the pitch and was stumped. The worst example was soon to follow: Dravid was bowled leg stump as he attempted an ugly "paddle" instead of the leg glance. This from the sublime stroke maker he is.

These four strokes cost their team the trophy. In each case they could have played a proper stroke and scored runs. They forgot that wickets are resources (as are overs remaining) that should be conserved for the middle and end stages of an innings.

It is far better chasing runs from a position of strength than without wickets in hand.

T-20 batsmen should look at videos of the past greats: Clive Lloyd’s back drive off a balanced back foot was more powerful than a "dab" through gulley; the leg glance is a risk free stroke unlike the legside paddle. No one plays the late cut anymore- only the open face "nudge".

Virender Sehwag has been subdued in the IPL. He bats like a T-20 batsman in Tests but, in the IPL he batted like a novice. Instead of ‘clearing the arms’ to score should he be clearing his mind? Instead of getting out with a slog should he be getting back to basics?

In the middle overs of T-20 matches, the run rate of only 6.7 runs per over illustrates the irrelevance of slogging against spinners. Batsmen today are far less skilled in playing spinners; their coaches today seem to offer only the popular clichés of ‘watch the ball’, ‘play it late’ etc.

There is a denial amongst coaches that tried and tested batting strokes are not relevant in ODI and T20 cricket. This is based on false assumptions; maybe on bad coaching but more plausibly, because of the shallow depth of cricket knowledge of cricket coaches.

Instead of their coaches’ unending laptop analyses, batsmen should analyse tapes of Bradman, Worrell or Kanhai playing spinners. They used their fast footwork to decimate spinners. Modern leg spinners or the feared "doosra" spinners such as Murali, Botha or Ajmal would have been destroyed by these batsmen’s footwork and handspeed.

In the current World T-20, what was Mahela Jayawardena thinking when he played a reverse sweep and was bowled? He is a gifted strokemaker able to hit around, through or over the fielders. Why reverse sweep when the odds are against you?

Mahela and the other batsmen should watch the videos of two World Cups lost by these silly strokes. Mike Gatting’s reverse sweep cost England their only chance of a World Cup win. Misbah ul Haq’s last ball ‘shovel’ in the last T-20 Final (when he needed only one run) lost Pakistan the T-20 trophy.