One-day cricket has taken a battering in recent times: boring, uninspiring and too time consuming are reasons usually associated with the decline of the 50-over format.
However, Wednesday’s one-day match was living proof of why this is the better form of shortened cricket. Hopefully it has breathed new life into the concept.
With the 50-over match, the momentum can change real quickly compared to Twenty20, and provide a wonderful contest. Australia started well, then in the middle lost their way before steadying and giving Sri Lanka a modest score to chase.
Sri Lanka started poorly, blasted Peter Siddle and Mitchell Johnson, fell victim to Xavier Doherty’s beautiful bowling before romping home with a few nerve racking moments. Only in Test cricket and the 50-over form can these momentum shifts be possible.
I have passionately written about the superiority of the 50-over form. For me, Twenty20 is too predictable. If a team bats first and hits 150-plus, it is unusual for them to lose the contest.
With a 50-over match, even a 300-plus score is not safe any more as there are more overs for a team to get settled and chase it down.
Who could forget that 2006 ODI in which Australia hit 434 only for South Africa to chase it down in the last over? I could not imagine a side hitting over 200 batting first and losing the contest in a Twenty20 contest.
As a sports fan and lover of cricket, I say, as Jimmy Reid, a famous union man, once said in a speech to Glasgow University: “Reject the values and false morality that underlie these attitudes. A rat race is for rats. We’re not rats. We’re human beings.”
Forget the Twenty20 rat race; ODI’s are where the real drama and purist short form cricket is.
Reject the false morality of the Twenty20 values.
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