Imo, Bhogle's assessment is typical of someone who has never played the game at any serious level. You have to remember that these are professional cricketers, the guys at the top spend an entire day practicing one shot over and over again with the aid of a bowling machine, hence the adage "Amateurs do it till they get it right, professionals do it tell they can't get it wrong." You don't need an in-between format like ODIs to help batsmen make the transition, if they've got the strokes all it is a change in mindset to take bigger risks. Look at how sucessful Dravid has been in both ODIs and T20s despite being written off as a test only player for the majority of his career. Isn't it also convenient that bowlers have not been brought up by Harsha? Thats because a top class bowler will be just as successful and awe inspiring in Tests and T20s and you'd sound pretty stupid if you said they needed ODIs to be able to make the transition from either of these formats.

To draw an analogy, as someone who almost ended up playing chess professionally, I didn't need 1-2 hour games to help ease the change in approach I took in the professional 4 hour games and lightning chess. And if you think about it, the different demands in terms of concentration and approach are pretty similar. You rely on your memory of patterns and positions in blitz games (for the top professional players this is almost second nature, their brains are almost programmed to recognize these things – much the same as a professional cricketer recognizes certain kinds of swing just watching the bowling action even if the bowler tries to hide the seam's orientation), but its just in the longer format you are able to study the effects of change in line with a lot more time.

I'm not much for tampering too much with the format itself, but all for any minor/major changes that help ODIs. The more I think about it, the more having a context to these matches is making sense to me. So, a limit to the number of limited over matches per tour is a definite yes. Perhaps, some rules that make the game less batsman-centric as well? Plus, I agree with Leela there…a bit more balance in who play who how often. For e.g India has played 17 matches against SL in the last 2 years, but just 4 against WI…when 2 teams play each other so often, the excitement of watching the contest lessens to a degree.

Imagine the difference if, for example, the size of the boundary was not shortened by bringing the rope in; the batsmen would have to work much harder to clear the fence, and it might force them to be more inventive when clearing the infield.

LOL Homer @ "Since when did Dileep Premachandran's opinion matter to anyone besides Dileep Premachandran?

The man cannot construct a nuanced argument and when challenged on his thesis, he either back peddles or ignores."

Classic!