Cricket in the 19th century began as a pass time between people in the village who fancied a decent time out with friends. The game assumed serious proportions when the first test match was played between England and Australia. Since then the five day format got in lots of crowd with names such as WG. Grace, Victor Trumper, Sir Donald Bradman all showing their talents. Once test cricket became a dormant point of interest for the fans, the powers to be introduced ODI Cricket. From 60 over battles to 50 overs of high octane cricket under lights, the version has seen it all.
Introduction of T20 and too much meddling off rules in ODI Cricket –
2002 saw the latest innovation come into play with T20 cricket being introduced. It took T20 cricket a while to get going, but since the first World T20 and the inception of IPL, the format hasn’t looked back. ODI cricket meanwhile started to lose its relevance from the mid 2010’s as 5 match or in some cases 7 match series or even tri-series of T20 matches came into being.
South Africa’s latest curveball –
South Africa Cricket Board recently threw a curveball as they withdrew from a short tour of Australia slated for early 2023. The SAF board came up with this move as they wanted to give their T20 league the priority. The venues of the 3 ODI were Hobart, SCG and Perth to be played on January 12th, 14th and 17th.
South Africa likely to miss the 2023 World Cup ?
South Africa are currently placed 11th in the table of ODI rankings and they stand to lose a whopping 30 points. This puts them in danger of playing the qualifiers, if they do not win their games against India, England and Netherlands.
South Africa’s official statement and Australia’s unhappiness –
Cricket South Africa chief Pholetski Moseki recently stated about the hard decision that he had to take to forgo the tour of Australia. Speaking about it the CSA chief said “as difficult as this decision has been for CSA, the long term sustainability of our new T20 league is reliant on having all our domestic players for this exciting new addition to the CSA calendar. CSA is always keen on honoring its bilateral commitments. CSA offered 4 options. Unfortunately, and to our disappointment none of these were acceptable to Cricket Australia. CSA has agreed that the International Cricket Council award Australia the competition points”. Cricket Australia for its part has gone ahead and shared its unhappiness as it had aimed to earn huge revenues with the South Africans in town.
Is cricket going the football way?
Football has always seen the club was country debate rise up during the congested league season which starts in August and ends in June with the UEFA Champions League. Clubs have complained about the meaningless friendlies that prop in between the league season. UEFA took notice of this and decided to introduce the Nations League with each match during the European international week carrying some weight and purpose behind it. This year the FIFA World Cup will be played in November to December to avoid the harsh climate that Qatar can offer. This would mean that, all the clubs could lose a lot of players for an extended period of time.
ODI cricket on its last legs?
ODI cricket seems to have taken a huge hit post the COVID period while T20 cricket seems to gained ground. If you cast a look at all the games played by various teams in both the formats since COVID you can see a stark difference.
| Team Name |
ODI Matches Played |
T20 Matches played |
| India |
15 |
34 (1 No Result) |
| England |
21 |
34 |
| Australia |
17 |
37 |
| South Africa |
16 |
30 (1 No Result) |
| New Zealand |
9 |
29 |
| Pakistan |
15 |
39 |
| Sri Lanka |
23 |
28 |
| West Indies |
24 |
39 |
| Bangladesh |
21 |
32 |
| Zimbabwe |
15 |
31 |
| Ireland |
23 |
26 |
Before COVID many of the teams played at least 5-7 ODI games per series and on one occasion India had played over 30 ODI games a year. There were calls of burn out, but now the ODI cricket format is losing its sheen.
Cricket Cult’s take –
The pull out of South Africa is nothing but bad news for ODI cricket and its future. South Africa is one of the biggest teams in the world. Their battles with Australia over the years has been box office attraction. The pull out also sets a bad precedent as many of the teams will now look to follow suit and give their local leagues more credence over T20 cricket. This can only mean onething and that is the death of an already keeled over ODI cricket format which is breathing perhaps its final breath.
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