IT was the beginning of a brave new world for English county cricket, and Hampshire fans embraced the all-singing, all-dancing Twenty20 Cup.

Friday the 13th might be an unlucky day for the superstitious, but for the powers-that-be it was the perfect outcome.

The match attracted a 9,000 capacity crowd for the first time in the Rose Bowl's three-year history.

That was one of the largest crowds to watch a Hampshire home game for decades.

Whoever Up There is in charge of controlling the weather, He or She is undoubtedly a Twenty20 Cup fan as the sun shone almost throughout. Had the game been played seven days earlier umbrellas rather than suntan lotion would have been the order of the day.

l And last, but by no means least, Hampshire won despite scoring 'only' 153 in their 20 overs which was generally considered to be 20 runs or so short of a really challenging total.

You can attract spectators to watch any sport by providing all sorts of gimmicks, but nothing will bring them in like a winning team.

And Hampshire are becoming a dangerous limited-overs team this summer. Flying high in the National League, another Twenty20 Cup win in Kent on Monday should see another good crowd at the Rose Bowl for next Wednesday's Twenty20 clash with Essex.

Whether it will be anything approaching 9,000 could be unlikely as the numbers last night were swelled by youngsters at the ground to watch Mis-teeq performing live afterwards.

What the crowd, and a Sky TV audience, witnessed last night had its seeds sown back in the late 1970s when Kerry Packer's cricket circus radically changed the game by bringing in coloured clothing, white balls, and day-night games under the Australian floodlights.

Every time a boundary was hit last night the tannoy burst into life with a clip of the Twenty20 theme tune, 'I don't like cricket - I love it' by the United Colours of Sound.

Every time a wicket fell during the Hampshire innings out blared a brief snippet of 'It's not over 'til it's over' and during the Sussex reply we had, inevitably, 'another one bites the dust'.

We also heard the tannoy announcer regularly urging the crowd to 'give a big cheer for the Hampshire lads'. It's never like this in the Frizzell County Championship.

If you could strain your ears enough, you could hear another noise - that of many old cricket traditionalists rotating quickly in their graves.

This wasn't your cricket of your Gentleman and Players era, this wasn't the stiff upper lip approach found in the MCC members enclosure at Lord's, this wasn't for those who sit on stuffy committees (and, yes, we all know the ones I'm referring to!)

But it wasn't meant to be. Instead it was aimed at families and youngsters, those who either can't afford the time or can't be bothered to sit through a whole day's County Championship play.

And there aren't too many of the latter, hence cricket's ongoing problem. While four-day cricket is still seen as the benchmark of quality, it's the limited-overs format that brings in the crowds.

In one of the numerous press releases sent to the Daily Echo promoting the Twenty20, we were promised interviews with the players as they walked to the wicket.

With only 90 seconds to get there from their 'dug outs' beyond the boundary rope, this was something I was eagerly awaiting, but sadly these insights into professional sportsmens' minds never materialised. Anyway, it would be far better to shove a mic in front of them on their way back after being dismissed ....

I digress. Last night was an unqualified success for Hampshire. The sun shone and the local public supported an event whose novelty factor would have boosted their numbers. Who knows how important a role this Cup will have in the domestic cricket fixture. They laughed at Kerry Packer, remember.

There were lots of youngsters, even parents pushing babies and toddlers in prams, and from what I could see (and hear) the beer tents were doing a roaring trade.

Echo betting columnist Kevin McMahon went to the beer tent to get a couple of pints in and missed three wickets and about 40 runs!

And let's be honest - you would never have got around 9,000 people to a Benson & Hedges Cup tie on a Friday evening!

Speaking to managing director Nick Pike beforehand, he admitted crowds are sometimes down to around a couple of thousand for National League home matches.

A good percentage of the spectators last night would have been paying their first visit to the Rose Bowl, and they would surely have gone away impressed if initial impact counts for anything.

If the Twenty20 format introduces new fans to the sport, then who can complain? Journalists can be cynical people at times, but let's celebrate a damn good night's entertainment at the Rose Bowl and leave it at that.

Cricket, like many other sports, has been left behind in the past decade as the football Premiership has mutated into the giant it is today. That is where the glamour is for our 21st century kids.

Youngsters all over the country have their heroes such as Owen, Beckham and Henry packaged and delivered to them via Sky and the ITV on a weekly basis.

Cricket must play catch-up if it is to compete, and from what I saw last night the Twenty20 Cup has a role to play in perhaps helping to break down the image that it is a sport for middle and upper class people, played by those fortunate enough to have a university education and more initials in their name than Richard Johnson had wickets on his Test debut.

We're not going to thrash the Aussies in the next Ashes series (English cricket's Holy Grail) just because we've introduced kids and families to a three-hour thrash in the middle of summer, but the interest has to start somewhere.

For some, it could have started on the outskirts of Southampton last night in a match where both teams wore black but in a sport where they usually all wear white ....