It was a rainy afternoon at The Oval. Stuart Robertson was sipping his drink with friends, waiting for play to resume on the opening day of the final Test between England and India.
Despite the downpour, long queues had formed near the food trucks outside the JM Finn Stand. Robertson pulled out his umbrella, glanced at his watch, and asked his friend: “Do you think we will have a game today?”
“A T20 for sure…” came the wry reply. The two burst out laughing.
For the record, Robertson is widely regarded as the inventor of T20 cricket. In the early 2000s, as head of marketing at the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), he faced the daunting challenge of filling county grounds. International fixtures drew crowds, but domestic One-Day cricket was in decline. That’s when Robertson devised Twenty20. Under his watch, the format debuted in the 2003 English season; later that year, South Africa launched Pro20.
He never imagined the format would become cricket’s most lucrative product, but he recognised the need for a shorter, sharper version to keep the game relevant.
Two decades on, Robertson has left cricket administration behind — after stints at the ECB, Warwickshire, and Hampshire — and now runs his own creative brand and production studio. Yet his eyes still light up whenever T20 is mentioned.
He doesn’t like to call himself the “inventor,” noting that short-form cricket had long existed informally. But he takes pride in how it was professionalised.
“What I’m very proud of is that I led the marketing campaign and the whole introduction of the concept to professionalise it, and in a way re-energised cricket when we did it,” he told Sportstar with a smile.
The launch wasn’t universally embraced. On the day of its introduction in June 2003, Robertson was on a radio show extolling the new format when the late Brian Close, the former England cricketer, cut in to dismiss T20 as “rubbish” that would “ruin the game.” Convincing sceptics across the 18 Counties, even under ECB chairman Lord McLaurin, required careful manoeuvring.
Still, the reasoning was clear: domestic One-Day cricket was in decline, and younger audiences wanted more action in less time.
“At the start, T20 was not designed to be an end in itself. It was designed to be a kind of introduction to the game, a means to an end, rather than an end in itself,” Robertson said.
The launch of the Indian Premier League in 2008 transformed T20 into a global juggernaut, but Robertson insists the initial aim was different.
“What we were hoping is that through T20, we could introduce a whole new audience to the game of cricket who would learn to love the longer formats of the game once they got used to what it was all about.”
That ambition now sits uncomfortably with the reality of T20’s dominance.
“Test cricket can still be as enthralling as it can be. But you look around the rest of the world and when Test cricket is played, it is not a popular sport in terms of people filling up stadiums,” Robertson said.
He worries about its future. “With just three teams able to draw huge crowds and TV audiences, how long can Test cricket survive? At the end of the day, cricket is not just a sport, it’s also a business, and it has to respond to market forces. If T20 protects the game for another 150 years and cricket survives in one format, that’s better than it disappearing altogether.”
The first English T20 season lasted only 18 days. Soon, though, Counties turned the format into a revenue “cash cow.” The IPL’s success showed what was possible, and in response, the ECB sought to re-concentrate the product, eventually launching The Hundred.
Robertson sees The Hundred as a halfway house.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if The Hundred becomes a T20 format tournament in the next few years, especially with the IPL franchises picking up teams. That would be perfect. But overall, The Hundred has been an interesting experiment, but it’s time to go back to the recognised format, which is the T20s,” he said, making it clear he is not in favour of T10 cricket.
With Indian corporate giants like Reliance, RP-Sanjeev Goenka Group, and GMR buying into The Hundred, the ECB has signalled it is open to reshaping the competition into a T20 league. Robertson calls that “a welcome move.”
When the format was first conceived, Robertson and his team targeted women, young families, and the 16–35 age group. Today, its appeal spans generations. For Robertson, that is the ultimate reward.
“There’s nothing like seeing your concept spreading its wings,” he said with a smile.
Published on Aug 27, 2025
