WHEN Australia were bowled out for 60 in an Ashes Test in August 2015, an innings so brief it could be scored in a single tweet, it triggered a new round of concern about the collapse of batting technique in the age of Twenty20 cricket. Such fears are nothing new. “There is no doubt that Twenty20 cricket is affecting the ability of batsmen to play long innings in Test matches,” bemoaned Mohammad Yousuf, then Pakistan’s captain, six years ago. Sages worry that T20, a short format of the game that encourages devil-may-care attack, has bred an age of ill-disciplined batsmen, capable of extravagant strokes but lacking the basic defensive technique to succeed over long hours in Test cricket. But while it is true that the mindset of Test batsman has shifted in recent times, it is not true that the 20-over game is responsible.

The change had already occurred by the time the first T20 was played on a sultry June day in England in 2003. A dramatic increase in scoring rates in Test cricket had been led by the Australian side of Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting, Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist around the turn of the century. As that side became the most successful in the history of Test cricket, other countries mimicked their aggression. The average run rate in all Tests rose from 2.85 per over in the five years to 2000, to 3.28 in the five years to 2006. Since then, five World T20 cups have been played (the sixth begins in earnest in India this week) and domestic competitions like the Indian Premier League (IPL) have thrived. But the effects of T20 cricket have not been felt in Tests. Indeed, the average run rate in the longform of the game over the past five years is now 3.26, slightly less than a decade ago.

Neither has T20 made batsmen less durable. In the past five years, the average completed Test innings by a team lasted 987 balls, exactly the same as in the five years to 2002, the last year before professional T20 was launched. While draws have become less common—only 24.4% of games starting this decade have been drawn, compared with 33.8% in the history of Tests—this is a continuation of a trend that far predates T20 cricket. (A significant factor in the reduction in draws is better time-saving measures, such as umpires bringing teams back on to the field more quickly after a rain delay, and floodlights being used to prevent play stopping for bad light, which means more overs are bowled in a match.)

Indeed, Test cricket’s most old-fashioned virtue—the art of digging in during the fourth innings of a match to secure a draw, when the other side has an unassailable lead and batsmen are under the most pressure—is enjoying a golden age. Seven of the 20 longest fourth innings by countries to draw a game have occurred since June 2003. If the best modern batsmen can be more explosive than their predecessors, this has not come at the expense of defence. Take South Africa’s AB de Villiers (pictured above). Last January, Mr de Villiers hit a century in a remarkable 31 balls during a one-day international (ODI) against the West Indies. A few years earlier he had scored 33 in 220 balls—batting for over four hours without a single boundary—to help draw a Test in Australia.

If T20’s effect on Test cricket is overstated, its impact upon ODIs is undeniable. In one-day games between the ten Test nations, the average run rate in 2015 was 5.66, easily a record; before 2014, the highest average run rate was just 5.19. Early indications suggest 2016 is on course for another record. “People are batting in 50-over cricket with a T20 mindset,” says Jason Gillespie, the coach of Yorkshire. To see batsman play in an ODI is to see them unravel their full repertoire of shots honed in T20—from belligerent straight drives to switch-hitting and ramps over the wicket-keeper.

This is not down to T20 alone. Rules changes have also played their part. New fielding restrictions reducing the number of players allowed outside the 30-yard circle, which came into place in October 2012, have had a big impact. And some, including Mr Gillespie, think that pitches in ODIs are being prepared to be more batsman-friendly. But it is clear that, in the age of T20, teams’ ambition has grown. A remarkably high-scoring ODI series between India and Australia in 2013, in which there were nine scores of over 300 in just seven games, changed the perception of what constitutes a good first-innings score. Since then, 21.3% of chases over 300 in matches between the Test nations have been successful, compared with just 12.6% in matches before. The two limited-overs formats are now “essentially different sports” from Tests, Mr Gillespie reckons. Expect a future in which ODI cricket is pulled along by T20, while Test matches remain largely impervious to the revolution.