Arthur wary of Twenty20 overkill

Arthur replaced Ray Jennings as South Africa coach in May 2005

South Africa coach Mickey Arthur believes the Twenty20 format is better suited to domestic cricket than the international arena.

Rain forced Wednesday's international with England at the Riverside to be abandoned, but it would have been only their second Twenty20 match of 2008.

"Domestically it could be the lifeblood of the game, and has a huge amount of relevance and importance there.

"Perhaps domestically is where the target market for it is," he said.

Many people believe that Twenty20 cricket will soon replace the 50-over version of the game, but Arthur insists the longer one-day format is far more important to him.

"We fully regard the one-day series as being five matches and that starts on Friday," he said, referring to the five-match 50-over series.

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"Twenty20 is very much on its own as a lottery which can go either way."

South Africa hosted the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 competition last year, but despite beating West Indies, Bangladesh, England and New Zealand, the home side lost to eventual winners India and failed to qualify for the semi-finals.

"Internationally it is good to play a world tournament once every two years and to have a little international to almost launch your one-day campaign," Arthur said.

"It plays a huge role at domestic level and the injection of Twenty20 has been fantastic for world cricket.

"But I don't think there should be overkill at international level, simply because it's the lifeblood of the domestic game."