Spectators voted with their feet last week when only 19,000 showed up at the Gabba to watch a Pakistan team embarrass the Australia cricket team, not by winning (although they should have) but by clearly being the most entertaining team out there.

And that’s why one-day cricket is dead.

Spectators don’t come to watch the world’s best keep the scoreboard ticking over with deft shots and quick singles.

Spectators don’t come to see a fielding team dissected with a clinical display of craft.

That’s what Michael Clarke did to the Pakistan bowling, racking up single after single pushing the scoring rate up to six an over.

A decade ago that would have meant batsman took a few chances, lifting the head attempting to knock the ball into Stanley Street and on to the hallowed roof top of the German Club.

But not anymore. The Australians would have celebrated their win, the second-best run chase ever at the Gabba in a one-day international.

God it was boring.

Even the sun-drenched, grog soaked eastern stand fell in to a stupor.

The beach balls, the blow-up dolls, the beer-glass stacks, the attempts at the Mexican Wave, the boos as security and police punctured wayward beach-balls dried up to an occasional buzz. Were they snoring?

But in the middle Clarke’s bat was rapier like as it poked and prodded the carcass of the Pakistan bowling attack.

No slashing attack just the death from a thousand paper cuts.

In the northern stand the ghost of Yabba was resurrected “Have a go ya mug”.

At six and over the Australian’s could have felt a little hard done by.

But no longer. Twenty20 cricket has changed the expectations of spectators.

They come for the big bash. They come to see sixes, and even fours are met with perfunctory cheers.

At the Gabba only two batsmen gave the crowd what they were after. Afridi showed a hint of the flair which has made him the idol of fans world-wide, and the last 10–over blitzkrieg White unleashed on the hapless Pakistan bowlers, at last, woke the crowd from its slumber.