When 20-over cricket began, it was seen as a game that was a bit of a hit-and-giggle (not unlike when the 50-over game made its bow), with the odds heavily in favour of the batter. You went out, you hit out, and that was that. Subtlety was for the birds.
In the early years, that pretty much summed up team strategy. Both players and coaches were working things out as they went along. Tactics that seemed to be working in one match came a-cropper in the next. But a hierarchy of dismissals soon evolved.
Given the choice between getting caught near the boundary off a hefty hit, and being leg before in defence, there seemed to be something honourable in the former. You had died trying. It was the romance of the heroic failure.
