One of the reasons of the popularity of Twenty20 Cricket is its short duration only, which has brought the game closer to the timespan of other famous team sports. The main reason behind introduction of this form was to make the game much livelier and attract more and more spectators to the stadium grounds as well as keep the rest glued to their television set. In this context, T20 has been very successful. It was never intended to replace the traditional form of cricket, rather continue side by side, and this is what it is exactly doing.
Though it was initially restricted to UK, Twenty-Twenty Cricket soon spread all across the world. The first men's full international Twenty20 match was played in February 2005, at Eden Park (Auckland). Today, there is at least one T20 match in most of the international tours. In fact, majority of the Test-playing nations have a domestic cup competition in this regard. At present, amongst all the Twenty20 leagues in the world, Indian Premier League (IPL) is the largest and the most popular. In 2007, the inaugural World Twenty20 was played, in South Africa. India emerged as the winner of the competition, beating Pakistan.
