Still shining in the gloom

So the Twenty20 circus rolls back into town for another season. Much has been written about the game, and there have been sell-out crowds galore, but in its fourth year have people just had plentyplenty?

The early signs at St John's Wood Tube station are good. The station supervisor, Glenn Abbot, says that he's had far more requests than usual asking where Lord's is - suggesting there are a fair few rookie spectators - and he also beams: "The women you get at Twenty20 are much better looking than you get at the Tests, and younger. It's wonderful!"

Yet at the North Gate, disappointing news: hundreds of tickets are left and on-the-day sales are sluggish; last year this Middlesex v Surrey tie was sold out. (although, in the grand scheme, selling 27,000 tickets for a county match is actually remarkable) And the weather isn't the warmest and the football's on, perhaps that explains it. The ECB will certainly be hoping that's the case up at Yorkshire, where the sparse Headingley crowd is more like a county championship following.

Happily, inside Lord's there are plenty making their watching debut, including Colin Costello and his 11-year-son Thomas, who have travelled from Bromley after winning their tickets in a charity raffle. "It seems a lot more good humoured than a football match," says Colin, a Charlton season-ticket holder. "There's been no bad language." But would they come again? "I'd quite like to see another Twenty20 game," he says, "or even a Test match."

Families are one target audience for this form of the game; its after-work element makes it perfect for corporate entertainment, or for those who wouldn't take a day off work to watch cricket. Tony Antoniou is more of a football fan, but has come with his bank to entertain clients. He's impressed with the evening - "It's very good" - although he was expecting screens for the World Cup football, "if not in the stadium, at least in the bar." And he wouldn't give up a day's holiday for the cricket.

I wonder if there are any women in their group. "Don't be stupid," he scoffs, although his colleague, Russell Alder, tells me that their female boss will be back on Friday to bring more clients, although presumably she won't be leading the post-match stampede to Spearmint Rhinos.

That match on Friday, against Kent, hasn't sold out either. Maybe the game's losing its allure. Maybe it's just the World Cup. Ironically one man is here because of the football. Neil Smith, a keen sports fan, came here so he wouldn't have to watch the £20 he slapped on Ghana to beat Brazil disappearing down the pan. "It was inevitable, I suppose," he says.

As was Abigail Wheatley's appearance at this match. After years watching her boyfriend, George Frankland, play club cricket, she has finally made her county debut and has joined him at Lord's. "It's my first proper cricket match where you sit on seats," she smiles. But neither would she take a whole day off for cricket, so this sort of match is perfect.

It also appeals to club cricketers such as George, who play on weekends. "This game helps me take the capital W off my work-life balance," he says. "Mine too," adds his friend Adam Rutherford. George is less impressed, though, with the renaming of Surrey Lions as Surrey Brown Caps. "Surrey have rebranded in a very, very, very bad way," says George. "Would you rather be a lion or ... a kind of urchin?" "Or - a man with a brown cap?" adds his friend, John Acland-Hood.

Both have a point, as did Steve James in last week's Sunday Telegraph, who suggested that team monikers are largely useless. "An unofficial sounding out of media outlets was made earlier this season and the response was not encouraging," he wrote. "A waste of time was the general consensus." For now, though, the Surrey Brown Caps - ah, yes, that's very clumsy - are leading the charge against the Middlesex Crusaders. In fact, they went on to give them an absolute pasting.

And that's a potential problem of the game, for the purists at least. While it may seem sacrilegious to criticise Twenty20 - and particularly when James Benning and Ali Brown are smashing the ball to all parts - these matches can nevertheless be horribly one-sided. After Surrey racked up 200-plus, and Middlesex lost a few wickets, that was effectively game over. Still, at least with this shortened form of the game, the denouement was swift.

It didn't stop the crowd cheering every wicket and boundary right to the end, though, or the Middlesex followers booing the pantomime villain Mark Ramprakash for deserting them years ago. But it was all done in good spirits and, while this might not have been the most electrifying match, a few imaginations of the new fans might just have been sparked.