County Cricket / Will Smith / 05 June 2011 /

Despite leading the County Championship Durham's Will Smith welcomes the thrill and danger of the T20, precisely because of those characteristics! Follow Will on Twitter here

Like the seductive woman in a bar you know you should steer clear of, Twenty20 forces itself into the thoughts yet again. You can't get away from it - the shortest form of the game is back and here to stay.

As I write, the domestic Twenty20 competition has just begun. Grown men dressed as bananas and sixes, leaping catches and drunken chanting (from the crowd, not the players!); the one game we've played at Durham brought all of the above. That we were on the wrong side of the result is obviously disappointing, but it is a marathon of 16 games in the group stage, and there is ample time to get on a winning roll.

Momentum is absolutely paramount to a successful Twenty20 campaign. You need to get players performing specific roles that suit their skills, and they need to begin performing these roles successfully early in the competition. The games come thick and fast, and it will be the teams that get into the groove early that prevail.

The winner usually comes from the South Group. Leicestershire won it in 2004 and 2006, but every other year since the competition's inception in 2003, the winner has been a southern county. In fact, not since 2006 has the final featured a team from the North Group.

It is hard to explain the dominance of the southern counties. It could be that the games are consistently played on better wickets, thus allowing players to execute their skills to greater effect. Or that the greater strength in depth of the South Group means that when it comes to the knockout games, the southern teams are more battle-hardened. Either way, it is hard to see much changing this year. Teams like Somerset, Hampshire, Essex, Sussex and Surrey will all be confident of going far.

From the North Group, ironically, the two teams that could feature highly are two of the most southerly counties - Warwickshire and Northamptonshire.

Warwickshire looked impressive against us in the one game we've played. Disciplined and accurate seamers, allied with the spin bowling of Jeetan Patel and Ant Botha (when fit again), makes an effective combination. What really took the eye was the batting of William Porterfield. He batted with great skill and clarity of mind, and I noticed he scored a few in their second game of the tournament also.

Northamptonshire have been playing some great one-day cricket this year, and they should be able to translate this good form into the Twenty20 format. The addition of Johan Botha is a good one too.

You may notice that I have mentioned a number of spinners already. Good quality and clever spin bowling is vital to success in Twenty20, as proved by the recent IPL, where spinners featured abundantly in the list of most economical bowlers. For this reason, don't count out Durham's chances of reaching the knockout stages at least. Gareth Breese and Ian Blackwell are two of the finest one-day spinners around. Paul Collingwood and Dale Benkenstein can provide a mixture of medium pacers, slower balls and cutters. Add to that, the exciting Scott Borthwick and, dare I say it, even my off-spin may prove useful. It seems we have all bases covered when it comes to slow bowling.

While Twenty20 is the alluring woman in the bar, the County Championship is the lovable but boring uncle. Please forgive me for talking about the longest form of our domestic game, if you were expecting a thrill-a-minute Twenty20 piece.

But, as we speak, Durham sit top of the County Championship table at the halfway point in our season. It seems as if this year anyone is capable of beating anyone on their day. There have been some results that have gone perhaps against the expected. For this reason, and through experience of being in similar positions in previous years, I can assure you that there are many more ebbs and flows left in this year's Championship. We feel confident, but any one of three or four teams will feel capable of winning it also.

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