ODI Cricket dying a “Slow Death” after surge in T20 leagues across globe: Not long ago, the 50-overs cricket games were one of the most competitive and interesting games to watch. Fans used to love the format as it was the combination of both test and T20Is. The aura it possessed back then had some magic in it, however, things are different in the present scenario.
With the surge in franchise cricket all across the world and with the upliftment of Test cricket, the One Day International (ODI) seems to be losing its sheen and going out of public radar.
Barring the ODI World Cup, which is the only tournament in 50-overs cricket which has its significance intact till now, all other bilateral tournaments have become pale.
The shrink in the game could possibly be the result of the increasing popularity of the T20 cricket and a surge in people’s emotion towards the Test cricket after the introduction of World Test Championship.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) worked tirelessly to revive the charm of the traditional format of cricket. As a result, ICC introduced a World Test Championship which surprisingly re-ignited the fans’ affection towards the longest running format. Even though just a handful of countries actively play test cricket, the WTC has done phenomenally well to keep its significance.
Furthermore, if we look back a few years, not many cricket leagues existed. There were just a few that dominated the format. However, now, every other cricket board has its own T20 cricket league. The popularity of the format is such that a few cricket boards even run more than one T20 league.
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However, among all these in the last few years, ODI cricket didn’t see enough action going on. Following the end of the ODI World Cup 2019, the cricket boards focused more on the T20Is and Tests.
If we take India’s case, the Indian national cricket team has just played 24 ODI games since their horrible loss against New Zealand in the ODI World Cup 2019.
Several cricket experts and active cricketers have expressed their views on the decline in ODI cricket. Let’s see what they said:
“I feel like that’s (ODI) probably the third-ranked out of all of them. I think personally one-day cricket is dying a slow death, there’s still the World Cup, which I think is really fun and it’s enjoyable to watch, but other than that, even myself personally, I’m probably not into one-day cricket as much either,” said Usman Khawaja.
“I’m an absolute cricket badger, a nut, and I switch off the telly after a point of time, watching the one-day game. That’s frankly very scary for that format of the game, I think. Those ebbs and flows, when they go missing, it’s not cricket anymore, it’s just an extended format of T20,” said Ravichandran Ashwin.
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