The 50-over Cricket World Cup started to the backdrop of empty stands in India, and the fans of the traditional one-day game must be in panic mode about the future of the format.
It should have been a powerful, energy-driven opening to the tournament in a nation that lives and breathes cricket, where the two previous finalists from 2019 in England and New Zealand battled it out. It had two teams filled with plenty of run-scorers and wicket-takers and the ability to light up the pitch – but instead, it was played in front of a lacklustre crowd at the Narendra Modi Stadium, by anyone’s standards.
The venue in Ahmedabad can look empty with tens of thousands of fans in attendance due to its mammoth 130,000-seat capacity, but even taking that into account, a low crowd for the opening match for a format that is growing more doubters by the day is not a good look.
Mark Nicholas, the incoming president of Marylebone Cricket Club, has even been quoted by respected cricket media organisation ESPNcricinfo calling for 50-over cricket to be played exclusively at World Cups, in a bid to preserve the ODI format from what he describes as the “supernatural” power of Twenty20.
These type of statements from the incoming president of the MCC does not give much confidence to the format or fans who have enjoyed this format in the past.
Many will remember that the 50-over game was created in the World Series cricket days and the cunning mind of Kerry Packer, where it flourished to great heights. Now, to see it be questioned, just highlights the cricket administrator’s absence in wanting to grow the format.
It seems administrators and the governing body want to take the easy way out rather than actually fixing the format.
It is always been a conundrum for the International Cricket Council to get the cricket calendar right.
The governing body has tried to halt the so-called ‘nothing games’ that occur from time to time in a series, but it is tricky what is the solution to keep one-day cricket relevant.
There have been 158 ODIs played this year alone, with the 48 matches scheduled for this World Cup ensuring the annual total will be well over 200 for the first time. That is a lot of one-day cricket.
A potential solution is to make every country including Test nations qualify for the World Cup; by not having series after series but by having every team put in a group for a long-running round-robin competition, like we see for the football World Cup qualifiers.
Mitchell Marsh. (Photo by Pankaj Nangia/Getty Images)
Another idea is to keep the series format, but with a baseball-like separation where countries are put into groups and play against one another. Imagine a situation where a top country like Australia is placed in a ‘group of death’ to qualify for the World Cup – where every match is virtually a must-win – it could create more intrigue for fans and broadcasters alike.
Granted, this would be hard to organise given the cricket calendar looks like a smorgasbord of franchise T20 cricket and a sprinkle of fleeting test matches, all competing for the players’ time on the field, while giving them enough rest.
Another problem is that those who are showing up in India have said the damage of releasing fixtures and tickets 41 days before the tournament is sowing further doubt into the minds of potential attendees and the governing body.
Only time will tell if interest in the format in India and aboard will wane or gain, with Australia kicking off their World Cup campaign against host nation India in what will be a cracking contest.
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