Isn't Twenty20 cricket incredible? I will freely admit I was one of the biggest sceptics when the idea was first mooted. I considered it a gimmick which I thought the public would see through and spurn. How wrong I was!

Maybe some of my initial aversion to it was born from the fact that I would never have been very good at it.

Even though, like most other cricketers, I had played a good deal of this form of cricket in my earlier years - in the Forest of Dean Midweek League - being able to smash professional bowlers around with such little time is not quite as easy.

In 1999 we at Glamorgan had played a pilot 25-over match against Worcestershire at New Road and I had hated it - then coach Duncan Fletcher and captain Matthew Maynard even berated me for my uninterested attitude. But now as a spectator and commentator I am loving it.

The crowds have just been staggering. For Lord's to have 26,500 for the recent Middlesex v Surrey match - which was a dead game too - is evidence enough that this concept is not only working and here to stay but may be providing a lifeline for the game in a competitive market.

Just over 250,000 people watched Twenty20 last year and already that figure has been easily surpassed this year - albeit with the aid of an additional quarter-final round.

So it was a delight to be at Cardiff on Monday for Glamorgan's quarter-final against Warwickshire. The atmosphere was something else, the biggest crowd there for a domestic game for a long time.

It was even more amazing when one considers that the club had only had since Friday, when the quarter-finals were finally determined, to sell it.

Surrey had rather arrogantly began selling their home tie even before they had been confirmed as having a home match.

And what an innings we witnessed from David Hemp. It truly was magnificent. The greatest compliment one can pay it is to say that it totally overshadowed the equally praiseworthy efforts of another left-hander, Matthew Elliott.

If you had suddenly appeared from Mars on Monday evening and had not seen these two play before you might well have reckoned that Hemp was the international, so well did he bat. I reckon it was certainly his finest effort for Glamorgan.

And it will have been especially pleasing for him against the team he represented for five years. He has always had special talent but not always the mental application to go with it. But this season he looks so relaxed, so confident.

I can be happy that I was the man to re-sign him from Warwickshire, but maybe not so happy that I had the hare-brained idea of him being an opener - that experiment failed spectacularly and probably stalled Hemp's career for a couple of years.

Now he is thankfully back on track and Glamorgan fans can look forward to a few more years of elegant left-handed batting. Of course a major talking point at Sophia Gardens on Monday was the omission of Mike Powell. On the face of it, it might seem strange to have left out a chap who only a month ago was called up by England.

But Powell knows he has not performed in this competition - just 48 runs in five innings - and also that he has not looked particularly comfortable. He did not seem to grasp the idea that there is always a bit longer than you think to bat in Twenty20 and accordingly some of his shot selection had been rather hasty- in other words he had tended to try to play big shots a little too early.

But he is a strong character who will bounce back. His omission just shows how strong the Glamorgan squad is.

I was also pleased for Adrian Dale who has come back into the Twenty 20 side and made a real difference. His bowling seems to have rediscovered its usual nagging accuracy and as a result it has given skipper Robert Croft a lot more options in the field.

Croft and coach John Derrick will now face another selection dilemma on finals day - August 7 at Edgbaston - when Mike Kasprowicz will be available.

I would suggest that Dean Cosker might be the one to make way because his bowling has not really been required; however his exceptional fielding does have to be taken into account. Would Glamorgan have beaten Worcestershire the other night if Cosker had not brilliantly run out Graeme Hick? Whatever, this competition's influence is clearly spreading - already South Africa have copied it and other countries are poised to follow suit.

And we hear that England will play Australia in a Twenty20 match next season. The selection for that might be interesting. Will England just pick the same players they might for a normal 50 overs one-day international or draft in some Twenty20 specialists?

Adam Hollioake has easily proved to be the most effective practitioner in the last two years, but he is retiring at the end of the season. If Hemp continues to play like he did last Monday his name may well crop up.

Steve James