It might be that you need to go to India to appreciate this, but the biggest eye-opener about the Indian Premier League is what high-standard competitive cricket it provides. Since its inception, there has been a disconnect between the international view of the IPL - that it's a hit-and-giggle exhibition fattened up by television cash - and the local view in India, among spectators and players alike, that this is a deadly serious competition played ruthlessly. It has been so successful in its three years for the simple reason that it has produced superb, hard-fought cricket.

So when Cricket Australia green-lighted a national T20 competition along IPL lines, allowing partial private ownership, I thought it was an admirable move.

Localism has been on the way out ever since 1884, when big-hitting George Bonnor tried to escape a Victorian ban by fleeing to NSW. Don Bradman, Bob Simpson, Greg Chappell and Allan Border are among the greats who have crossed borders, and the domestic competition has long benefited from the participation of overseas stars such as Garry Sobers, Barry Richards, Viv Richards and Imran Khan. The IPL has pioneered the all-star concept with local components, but there's no reason Australia can't take it a step further.

There is so much fear about the effect of the new T20 world on Test cricket that authorities will do everything, for another decade at least, to protect and nurture the five-day game. The rump of cricket lovers, even if they are too aged, pale and male for comfort, cherish Test cricket too much to let money and T20 rot it.

There is no such devotion to the 50-over game, however, and it will be the victim of the new format. The Australian domestic competition has disinterred a once-tried idea this summer, the innings split, in a bid for revival. I differ from my BPL colleague Jonathan Howcroft, who has enjoyed the change of pace, in one respect: I think the change is better than nothing, but it still doesn't work.

One question non-cricket fans always ask is, ‘Who's winning?' To which the cricket tragic replies: ‘Well, it's not that simple.' In the Ryobi Cup, I find myself reduced to foreigner status. Who is winning? Following the games on television, it's very hard to tell whether you are watching the first or second half of the match and whether the team batting is extending its lead or making up a deficit. This could just be the fault of Fox Sports, which has yet to learn how to give viewers the necessary information without cluttering the screen. But I think the format has a more fundamental flaw, which is that the innings break is just that, a break; it doesn't affect tactics significantly, but interrupts the momentum for the players and continuity for the viewer. Fifteen years ago it was tried and dumped, and from young WA bowler Michael Hogan's response (‘Are you enjoying it?' ‘No.') it doesn't feel as if it has a long future.

The sentiment behind it is laudable, however, and I think if anything the next move will be to take the idea further. If spectators want a ‘Test match in one day', then that's what they should get. Rather than break a 50-over (or 45-over) match in half, instead multiply a T20 game by two. Who wants to see an innings resume at 6/98, with Hauritz and Johnson coming out to bat? Instead, the better idea would be to let the teams start again from the top. Have a T20 match, see where the teams stand, and then give them a second innings. That might expand the tactical component and give short-form cricket some of the nuance of a Test match.

The downside of the idea of two-innings T20 would be its brutal effect on bowlers. T20 is hard enough on the leather-flingers as it is, without doubling the pain. Yet you don't see bowlers going on strike. In fact, retirees such as Brett Lee and Muttiah Muralitharan are playing on in T20 after giving up the long form.

Gluttons for punishment, maybe, or gluttons for payment, but it's encouraging to see bowlers treating T20 as a challenge rather than an imposition.

As revealed in the weekend's press, cricket is in trouble and Cricket Australia knows it. Until the next charismatic Test team appears - and there are no Warnes, Gilchrists or Waughs in the current lot, so it could be a long wait - CA is going to have to close the gap by using its imagination. The restyled one-day competition is a start, but it's leading into a dead end.

Franchise T20 cricket is not just the future, it's not even short-form cricket as we know it. It has the potential to be something even better.