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If there were any doubts left about the value of twenty-20 cricket then Monday's final must have washed them away.

It was pure entertainment from the first ball to the last and I was hooked.

It helped that my team, India, won the tournament. But I have to agree with Shahid Afridi - watching twenty-20 is like watching highlights. The players love it, the fans love it and the team that played the best cricket won, so what's the problem?

You'll never replace Test cricket and the 50-over World Cup will always be there, but I think twenty-20 cricket has a big part to play in the future of the game.

This tournament was a major, major success and I'm sure it will be an official twenty-20 World Cup next time.

People say it's a slog-fest but you saw the batsmen that did well in this tournament all played regular cricket shots. The only thing they did, was they improvised a bit more.

They played all the shots that they would play to score a century in a 50-over match - they just squeezed them all into ten overs.

The biggest highlight for me was to see my India team bounce back from the World Cup and win. They were the best team in the tournament and they deserved their victory.

Yuvraj Singh made it look so easy - hitting six sixes in an over. Every one was out the middle of the bat, every one was a proper cricket shot.

It was also good to see the Aussies crack under pressure. That's the first time we've seen them do that. They were 120 for 3 against ... in the semi-final and they just cracked.

But that's what this format can do - it's extreme pressure from start to finish.

To me, that can only sharpen players' skills.

A miss-field, a loose ball or a miss-hit can cost you the match - it makes you sharper in all areas.

After watching this World Cup I'm really excited for the Stanford twenty-20 tournament. It was also nice to see coach (Gus Logie) saying the other week that he thought we should have a league here in Bermuda.

It will be interesting to see how it develops - if they allow more teams into the World Cup.

I think twenty-20 does level things out a little bit so we would have more chance of competing in that format.

Associates all-stars

I read on CricketEurope that one of the ideas being discussed was to have an Associates XI compete at the next tournament to make it more competitive.

They selected their own team and me and Hempy (David Hemp) from Bermuda were on it. It was just a team they picked themselves for a feature, but it was nice to be included. It's an honour, after playing cricket all my life, to get that sort of recognition.

Personally I think an Associates XI would be a good idea. The ICC are looking at ways to bridge the gap between the Test playing nations and countries like Bermuda, Canada, Scotland and Ireland and a joint team could work well. I'm sure an Associates XI would be competitive with teams like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. It will be interesting to see if it happens.

CricketEurope - the website for the associate cricket world - selected a hypothetical associates XI, to compete in the next Twenty-20 World Cup. Here's who they thought should be in it.....

* John Davison (Canada)

* David Hemp (Bermuda)

* Eoin Morgan (Ireland)

* Steve Tikolo (Kenya)

* Ryan ten Doeschate (Netherlands)

* Ashish Bagai (Canada)

* Lionel Cann (Bermuda)

* Trent Johnston (Ireland)

* Majid Haq (Scotland)

* Binod Das (Nepal)

* Charles Waiswa (Uganda)

India's Gautam Gambhir plays a shot during their ICC World Twenty20 cricket final match against Pakistan in Johannesburg September 24, 2007. Lionel Cann says this tournament was a "major, major success."

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