I'm an American cricket fan, been watching the game since I was an exchange student in England during an Ashes year. Something I don't understand is, why do people say T20 is exciting and will bring more fans to the game? To me, T20 robs the game of its context, discipline, and patience. If you know the bowlers have to bowl at the stumps more due to the narrower wides and the batsmen will be slogging for lots of fours and sixes, what exactly is exciting about that? Excitement often comes from someone doing something great at an unexpected time. If a batsman hits a six in a test match when the run rate is 2 or 3 runs per over, that's exciting. When they're doing it over and over in a T20 match because the format of the game is meant to allow it, it's just not the same.
Granted, it takes me 3 weeks to watch a single test (watching in 20-30 minute segments, by which time the next test has already started, all while I'm trying to avoid spoilers), but I still prefer it!