JAMAICA Cricket Association (JCA) president Paul Campbell says the rise in popularity of Twenty20 cricket should not lessen the importance of the longer versions of the game.

Campbell, who was speaking after last week’s launch of the national phase of the Twenty20 Community Cricket competition at the Terra Nova Hotel, said local two-day competitions are essential to enhance the development of the sport.

“It is perceived by some (people) that you can get someone off the road to play T20 cricket and get quality. It’s not going to happen. The person must have the requisite skills and must understand the rudiments of the game to be able to play Twenty20 at a high level,” he said.

Twenty20 cricket limits each team to one innings consisting of a maximum of 20 overs. The first competition of its kind was played in England in the summer of 2003 and was reportedly an immediate success while drawing in record crowds.

The interest in the T20 version has since risen in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean, proven by the popularity of the lucrative but now defunct Stanford 20/20 and the inaugural 2010 West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) Twenty/20 tournaments.

While hinting at the possibility of an island wide semi-professional T20 tournament, Campbell insisted that the top local competition would still be the Jamaican Super Cricket League and each would fill its own niche.

“You have to twin together both the two-day cricket and the Twenty20 cricket; if you don’t have the development aspect in place then you’re not going to get good (development) results from the T20. You still require that development at the side of it to enhance the Twenty20,” said the JCA boss.

“It would not supersede the Super League, but each version has its role and the commercial version is going to be the T20, so you are going to be seeing more of it. The T20 is where most of the (monetary) return is going to be coming from. When you look at the two-day version, that is the development side of it,” Campbell added.

Many have criticised T20 for lacking serious purpose and have also accused it of making a mockery of a high quality professional game. They fear its growth might upset traditional formats of the game, especially Test cricket, which is already experiencing a huge decline in interest.

This three-hour format was designed to provide a more entertaining version of the game so that cricket could be played in a relaxed and fun atmosphere and at the same time be intense and fast moving.

Supporters of the shorter version assert that through Twenty20, interest in cricket will increase and its success will possibly help revive the demand for the traditional forms of the game.

Campbell said sponsors need to be encouraged by the financial benefits of their investments and T20 can help to facilitate that.

“Gone are the days when you can just call one of your corporate partners to say, ‘I need 10 or 20 or 50 million (dollars)’. There are no longer any handouts, so you now have to establish how to show value to your partners.

“T20 represents an attractive opportunity for corporate sponsors. You now have to look at returns from investment and it has to come from within the sport itself, with gate receipts and so on,” said Campbell, who is also a WICB director.

The winners of the ongoing Caribbean T20 Tournament will be the sole representatives from the region in the Airtel Champions League in South Africa in September.

Last year, Trinidad and Tobago, the winners of the 2008 Stanford 20/20 tournament, qualified for the inaugural Champions League in India and finished second.

“The game has evolved and all of us in the West Indies at every level have to raise our level. That is where we have to go. For the Champions League, if Jamaica goes there we are looking at a participation fee in the region of US$500,000,” he said.