As these words are being written, the rain is falling in Cape Town. Yesterday's glorious view through the Spin's hotel-room window of half of Table Mountain has given way to a thick blanket of grey - is your heart bleeding yet? - and your column feels in limbo (hell, it was even asked this morning by the woman who diligently fried its egg whether or not it was married). India's Twenty20 jamboree suddenly feels as far away as the start of a fresh summer of international cricket in England, with all its usual preoccupations about Andrew Flintoff's batting position and Michael Vaughan's form. And yet, symbolically at any rate, perhaps Cape Town is the right place to be.
It's tempting right now to see the world of cricket in shades of black and white: the old forces of five-day cricket (made to feel even older by the traditionally steady-as-she-goes nature of England and New Zealand, who meet next week at Lord's); and Twenty20's brash upstart, apparently thriving in its natural home in up-and-coming India. So which side are you on?
Or do you have to take sides at all? What was striking in India was the extent to which old values die hard in cricket. Lalit Modi, the chairman and commissioner of the Indian Premier League (memo to Modi: get a snappier job description), cleverly established a relationship with MCC from the outset, and insisted that all eight franchise captains sign a declaration affirming the spirit of cricket at the IPL's opening ceremony in Bangalore. Last week - and more of this later - one of the captains accused another of making a mockery of the gesture by refusing to walk for a catch. It was huge news. Yes, there was more than a hint of soap opera, but 20-over cricket, it seems, feels bound by cricket's traditions.
For those who will always love the nuances of the five-day game, it was also instructive in India to see cover-drives celebrated as ferociously as lap shots over short fine leg, the occasional maiden saluted with genuine gusto, and boundary misfields - of which there were rather too many - inducing the sort of mockery you'd get at 4pm on the boozy Saturday of an Edgbaston Test.
The jargonists call this kind of thing cross-fertilisation, and the chances are Test cricket will not remain immune either. For a start, five of the New Zealand team that is due to play at Lord's next week have recently been in India. At what point will muscle memory kick in and persuade Ross Taylor (Royal Challengers Bangalore) to smear Stuart Broad through midwicket, or Jacob Oram (Chennai Super Kings) to mix it up? If the advent of 50-over cricket sped up the Test match, what affect will Twenty20 have on the psyche of a new generation?
This question might be more relevant than it immediately appears. Once the English have stopped being sniffy about the IPL (weirdly, this will coincide with the introduction of an English Premier League in 2010, although it might happen earlier if Allen Stanford's $20m match captures the imagination as well as the attention of the bank managers), they will realise that the future of international cricket lies in two formats: five days and three hours. The old custom of sitting around all day in the hope of an exciting finish to a 50-over game will surely go the way of the notion that openers need to take the shine off the white ball.
And when that happens, we will find young batsmen honing skills an older generation could not have dreamed of, and young bowlers honing skills to deal with them. Don't expect them to shelve their new tricks when they're asked to play Tests. Twenty20 will be part of their DNA.
Test-match die-hards may regard this as blasphemy, but the game has always - always! - evolved and people continue to pay their money. Cape Town in early May might be nowheresville as far as world cricket is concerned, but it also feels about right. Now, if they don't bat Flintoff at No7, the Spin is going to be very angry indeed ...
Extract taken from the Spin, guardian.co.uk's weekly take on the world of cricket
