Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi makes a run against Australia during the one day international cricket match between Pakistan and Australia in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, April 22, 2009. (AP Photo/Andrew Parsons)
One-day cricket has been with us ever since the sun began setting in the evening and players couldn’t be bothered coming back the next day to finish the game off.
While limited-overs one-day cricket, as we know it, has been evolving ever since the birth of the Gillette Cup in England in 1963, the game seemed to hit a consistent format in 1978, the second year of the private World Series Cricket operation in Australia. A match would last no more than 100 six-ball overs, one innings for each side of 50 overs each, a maximum of 10 overs per bowler, and the lunch and tea intervals replaced by one long intermission at the change of innings.
Cricket had struck upon a clear, metric form for the game that could be played and administrated at almost every level – and still provide an excellent developmental springboard for players to move into longer formats, the two and three-day games, the four-day first-class game, up to the five-day Test. And in more recent times, it has launched teams and players into its twenty over-a-side derivative, better known under the trademarked expression Twenty20.
All these branches of the sport have a valuable place, but the one-day game is the trunk of the cricketing tree – and importantly, the linkage between the roots of the game, the aspiring youngsters, and its brightest flowers, the successful international professional players.
But enough of the horticultural metaphors. People are drawing simplistic conclusions from comparisons of crowd figures at ODIs and Twenty20 games this Australian season. The reasons, I believe, are more complex and require a blog entry unto themselves. However, the cry to axe fifty-over games and replace them all with T20’s is the wrong call. One-day cricket is the social and cultural backbone of the game. Kill it – especially without properly understanding why – and you pull down Test cricket, Shield cricket and the two-day club game as well. There will be no incentive for kids to play anything other than the twenty-over bash if nothing else exists at the elite level.
And then one day in the not-too distant future, someone will wake up and see all our kids playing baseball.
Brett McKay
Expert
MJG, so you can see no likely negative effect on Test cricket if the 50 over game is done away with?? And you asked up above how killing off 50 over cricket can have any effect given it's only ~35 years old? Have a look at the average scores and run rates in Test cricket in say, the 70s, when the first ODIs were played, and the last ten years. Scoring rates of more than three an over were unheard of, and 4th innings chases of more than a hundred in a session were hardly even contemplated, let alone attempted. The reason for the improve is simple: one-day cricket. But you would happily do away with this format, and have nothing between cricket that lasts three hours and cricket that lasts five days? How would batsmen learn how to bat through a session, let alone a day? How would a bowler learn rhythm, or bowling to a field, or the ability to set up a batsman, if all they'll have to worry about is 24 balls a game? I can't picture David Warner or Shaun Tait playing Test cricket now as it is, and that's still with one-dayers still there in the mix. And let's say you get your way, and the 50 over format is killed. Ten years down the track, how many Tests do you think will go into a fourth day, let alone a fifth? And when that happens, and ticket sales plummet, and then sponsors, advertisers, and networks all pull out because they're not getting the value for their corporate dollar like they did, what will cricket use as a replacement for that reveune stream? If we let Twenty20 become king, and have that format and Test cricket only, it's not just one-day cricket that dies, but cricket itself. It's not that long ago that Test cricket was going through a similar challenge as what the one-day game currently faces. But look now? Test cricket not only survived, but thrived. We are seeing the typical cycle of novelty with Twenty20 now. Yes, there's a place for it, but it has to be carefully handled. Familiarity breeds contempt, remember, and cricket's very survival hinges on its very careful management.
vas
Guest
mjg, it's not going to improve next year, because the administrators have not recognised the fault with the format at the moment. it's being overplayed, and the variously placed restrictions have made the game lose its ability to ebb and flow. fans have voted with their feet, i'm with you there. so instead of chucking it out, work out how to reinvigorate the format. just a few months ago, we saw one of the best odi series in memory with that tour to india. at the end of the day, conservative tactics must be discouraged. once that happens, the crowds will return in droves. we want to see quality, not quantity..
mjg
Roar Rookie
vas, the format is the issue. People don't want to spend eight hours watching a formulaic contest. They're voting with their feet. People who say it will improve next year with England here are in denial. Modern spectators either want a quick result (20/20) or a test. Move on or perish.
Test is the ridgey didge and its place is self-evident. T20 is the premier form of 'bastardised cricket' which values high strike rates and conversely devalues low run rates (and endless dot balls). One-day is somewhere in between, what does it offer that T20 or Test doesn't? Shorter than test, yet less of a slog-fest than T20; is that distinction enough for fans? T20 can accomplish expansion in non-cricketing nations that one-day could not.
vas
Guest
mjg, the gap between t20 and tests is too vast to bridge. t20 teaches nothing about batting to consolidate and build. odi cricket allows this. the question isn't the format, it's the tactics used. at any point in the 50 overs, teams should be able to score above 6 an over or lose a flurry of wickets. the middle period doesn't allow this. best way to fix it is to impose a limit of 3 fielders outside the ring at all times. the standard of batting will improve as a result.
mjg
Roar Rookie
One day cricket is boring and formulaic. I started watching cricket in the mid 70s. How can killing off one-day matches risk other cricket given it's a recent innovation? We tried it, it worked for a while, now it's failed. Move on or perish.
Brett McKay
Expert
Rick, this is a brilliant piece, compulsary reading for ayone who suggests ODIs should be killed off. The link to First Class, Club, and school cricket is spot on. Very well done for putting it out here for us to read and take in. On a similar vein, Gerard Whateley's piece on the ABC's The Drum last Friday asks some very valid questions too. Whateley is of the same opinion as plenty of we purists, and yourself here too Rick, in that to kill off ODIs is also the death of Test cricket. Whateley rather than asking "what to do with 50 over cricket?" instead - correctly, in my opinion - asks "how de we better manage Twenty20?" Read it in full at http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/12/2817396.htm?site=thedrum Rick's piece here, and Gerard Whateley's above, should be read in tandem, for they take different paths to reach the same conclusion: cricket simply cannot afford to kill off the one-day game.
Vinay Verma
Roar Guru
vas,you are right,context is important. That is why India/Australia in any form is compelling. There is a rivalry developing here,like in the Ashes. Though for cricket to truly prosper we have to put up with the pain of the lopsided contests. How do these other teams improve if they do not play against better opposition?
prowling panther
Roar Rookie
50 over cricket is entertaining when it is competitive. Unfortunately we have two poor visiting teams this season. CA has the current balance of games right. T20 games should have a rule that a certain amount of runs are deducted for each wicket that falls in an innings. Maybe 5 runs. This would bring younger players to appreciate the value of a wicket to an appropriate extent as opposed to swinging wildly for every ball.
vas
Guest
Some good insight there Rick. Frankly, ODI cricket seems to live on a match-by-match basis. The ODI series against India was one of the most compelling to watch in so long, compared to the soporific summer we've endured this season. The question is not to kill it off, but to reduce the fixture list. Cricket boards are working hard at pushing their product, but not on the reasons why spectators should continue to flock to the gates. As you say, the skills of ODIs have contributed greatly to Test cricket today. Dropping the format will prove too large a gap to bridge between T20s and Tests. Kill it off, and you're basically sounding the death knell for Test cricket as well. Let's be real about it. If you're a professional. why endure a 5-day match when you can earn 10 times that amount for 3 hours of work? I don't want to suggest ways to improve ODIs, for I think the format is good as it is. What I would say though is reduce the amount played, and a lot more will ride on each game. At the end of the day, we are all limited by the size of our wallets, and can only afford so much patronage to the cricket. Once you reduce how much we have, the more we are inclined to go and witness the spectacle for ourselves...