Why One Day Internationals Suddenly Seem Obsolete?

It’s the season of Twenty-Twenty or 20/20 cricket as we call it. First, we see the ICC allotting a slot (unofficially) for IPL and then they arrange for a T20 World Cup just after a gap of 2 years after the first edition in 2007. Cricketers, past and present, are writing their obituaries to the One Day Internationals (Games consisting of 50 overs per innings). Has T20 cricket killed One Day Internationals (ODIs) or is it just a temporary phase, a honeymoon, where T20s dominate for a while. Well, only time will tell. But, first, let us analyze why the ODIs have lost their importance over their years.

Pitches inclined in the favour of batsmen: If we analyze the history of ODIs, we will see that they were most popular during the period 1987-1999. Prior to 1995, totals of 300s were considered Himalayan. If a team posted a score of 250+, then the match was inclined to be in their favour, totals of 280 were sometimes deemed unchaseable. It was due to the presence of pitches that were either bowler-friendly or sportive. Batsmen had to earn their runs. But today, Batsmen have their say, rules and pitches are in their favor. Bigger and stronger bats with shorter boundaries help their cause in scoring pretty easy runs while the bowler is reduced to the role of a mute spectator. Today, even 300 is considered an easy target, 280 is below par and 220-250s are considered very easily chaseable. But in the golden 80’s and 90’s, even a target of 180 to 220 was defendable. The best examples being the 1996 Titan Cup where India easily defended a target of 223 against South Africa.

The presence of the truly great bowlers: In today’s cricketing world, if we desire to list out some great bowlers, the only names that come to mind are the Brett Lee, Shane Bond, Muralitharan, Mendis, Malinga and a few other names. The rest are either inconsistent and don’t shine in all kinds of pitches. But when you look at the 1990s, we had bowlers who dominated batsmen even in the most docile pitches: Wasim Akram and Waqar; Musthaq Ahmed and Saqlain; Murali; Donald, Fanie De Villers, and Pollock; Glenn Mcgrath and Gillespie; Srinath and Kumble; Eddo Brandes; Ambrose, Bishop, and Walsh.
Most of these bowlers have won matches when their sides were glaring at defeat. Ambrose and Walsh have triggered many collapses only to see their batting unit fail. Donald and Fanie de villiers have won many ODIs for their team. Murali and Jayasuriya spun India to defeat in the 1996 World Cup Semi-Finals. Saqlain and Mushtaq Ahmed have spun Pakistan to innumerable victories. Let’s not forget the frightening Waqar and the ever-reliable Wasim Akram, who demolished sides with their reverse-swinging Yorkers. No wonder the batsmen of today score easy runs. Even today’s greats like Hayden and Ponting never scored much against an ageing Wasim Akram. It speaks of the quality of bowling in the late 90s. Today’s bowlers are just able to contain the batsmen.

Great batsmen are identified by the quality of bowlers they play. Sachin and Lara were great because they played their audacious and stylish strokes even against the world’s greatest bowlers. Who can forget Lara’s 169 against Pakistan at Sharjah, or Sachin’s twin 100’s (142 and 134) against Australia in 1998. We also saw Jayasuriya plundering bowlers. His 48 ball hundred against Pakistan still stands as one of the most destructive innings ever seen. We saw Ajay Jadeja hammer Waqar Younis for 42 runs in 2 overs during the Quarter Finals of the 1996 World Cup. We saw Lance Klusuner murdering the Australian bowlers only to see Donald getting run-out at the penultimate ball.
1) The last and most important reason is that there are too much of one dayers played these days. A healthy cricket calendar should offer only limited and quality ODIs to the viewers. Today’s cricket calendars are crunched with innumerable, meaningless, ODIs, where sides play more for the sake of numbers. Batsmen and Bowlers get tired easily and as a result, players curtail their careers due to injuries.

If the ICC does not take measures to prepare sportive tracks and reduce the number of ODIs per year, we can say bye bye to ODIs. Hope sense prevails.