Ooo, Will, you cynic. Well, here goes a defence…

I like one-day cricket. I love Test matches, probably more than limited overs these days, but there are reasons to play the shorter form of the game. Just a bit less of it.

Firstly, it has a positive impact on Test cricket. Bowling is very different between the two, I will happily admit, but when it comes to fielding and batting, the pressure of one-dayers has improved standards across the board. Without one-day cricket, it’s unlikely we’d ever have a Kevin Pietersen in a permanent slot in the England side. Though there are plenty of days when I want to tear my hair out and make him block, just a little, there’d really be no fun in that.

Secondly, and I think more importantly, it’s a way in for people like me. I never used to like cricket. My parents did, so I can’t even say I had no opportunity to, but I didn’t understand it, wasn’t taught it at school properly, and didn’t really care about that fact. My first ever cricket match was a Twenty20 game, my first ever international an ODI against South Africa at Edgbaston (which we won, incidently). Test cricket is a different kind of game with a different kind of tension, but without the understanding and appetite for the game I earned with the shorter forms, I would never have been hiding behind my fingers on the last day of last year’s Edgbaston Test. County teams rely on one-day games for their revenue, and there’s a reason for that.

My problem with ODIs, ironically, is that they’re too long, and you’re right, there’re too many. Fifty over cricket has a dead middle period, between about over 25 and over 35, that sends me to sleep. I don’t see the point of messing around with fielding restrictions and power plays, and worrying about playing enough domestic 50 over cricket, when it makes so much more sense to play 40 overs. Pro40 works well, and is interesting cricket pretty much all the way through. Pakistan played the perfect run chase the other day by nerdle-ing (or however you spell it). The only good reason for longer limit-overs cricket is drinks sales. As for the amount of it? Stupid. Seven ODIs against India are denying me a Test next year and I’m spitting blood. Variety is the spice of life, and one-day cricket, at least in this country, is predictable.

But I think that’s due to this ‘English’ (read, dismissive) approach to the game. Lance Klusener sent an interesting email to Sky Sports the other day, and I completely agree with him - England’s problem is that they put on one-day shirts, but play Test cricket in the middle. There’s no fun in watching that. I switched over to the Australia/South Africa one-dayer in Johannesburg and was enthralled. I can watch county one-day cricket with perfect ease. But England are so often dull, and profess so little interest in this problem, that it’s no wonder that we all stay switched off. We need to be able to see it as a different game, not just a short Test with one innings.

But the ICC Trophy is a waste of time. I might have a little more time for it if it were on a four year cycle to fit in halfway between World Cups, like the Commonwealth Games and the Olympics. But it isn’t, so I remain scornful. Now, if the Twenty20 Cup were a replacement, that would be nice. Though I’m still not sure of even that at an international level. But that’s a different debate, and this comment is already essay length. This is what late night caffeine does to you.

My four-year-old son doesn’t approve of one-day cricket. He saw me watching the one-day match yesterday with England and Pakistan in their coloured pyjamas and said: “Make them go white, Mum, make them go white!”

The uniforms, that is. In case you’re wondering.

I have always wondered, especially recently, why England is so bad at the one day version of the game while being a very good test side. When watching them play tests they look completely at home & really into it but play one dayers like their heart is not in it. It’s unfortunate because you have exciting players like Flintoff & Pietersen..

Don’t kill the dead rubbers, Sunny, some of us have tickets Though, considering what happened in the Test dead-rubber last month, maybe the ticket losses might have been worth it on that occasion.

Agreed on atmosphere, though. Even if I’ll probably be moping through most of my ODI of the year on Sunday.

Jagadish thinks that the English claim boredom merely because they are losing.
Why then are quite a few Australian fans (me, for example) also largely unexcited by the format?

World Cups are fun - like the soccer World Cup, there is a great splurge of contrasting styles and wall-to-wall cricket. But other series seem to be pretty pointless affairs quickly forgotten.

Surprisingly, and for the first time in recent history, I agree with every word of Jagadish! (In fact I used exactly the same arguments with a friend recently on this topic).

SpryCorpse: If Aussies dont care about ODIs..then why do they organise so many at home? You may be an exception, but Aussies surely do care. Maybe they attach more importance to test cricket, but so do many subcontinental cricket fans.

Ofcourse, as all others are saying here, too many ODIs are diluting the importance of the format itself…but this viscious cycle seems to have no end in sight.

I agree with Sprycorpse. The Black Caps do pretty well in the one-day format, much better than in Test cricket, yet the one-day match has started to bore me too.

Except for the odd occasion when we wallop Australia, like in that amazing match here last December when the scores broke records (only to be broken again later in Sth Africa).

I don’t think it’s about how good or bad you are. Even if India play hopeless one-day cricket, people will still watch. The fact is, doing well in one-dayers creates stars in India. People like Dhoni and Irfan became huge after their one-day successes. I think England attach that importance to Tests. Winning the Ashes is huge. In India, winning a one-day series against Pakistan or Australia is huge. I remember the 2003-04 tour the Indian government didn’t want the one-dayers after the Tests. Reason? If India lost in the ODIs then it would cause a public outrage and might affect their election plans. So even if we’d got stuffed in the Tests, the people wouldn’t care that much.

I would attribute all this to only one thing. The World Cup win in 1983 remains India’s biggest moment in the cricket field. As long as there is a similar moment/moments in Tests, ODIs will continue to be the game to play.

Just imagine if England had won the 1992 World Cup. Would your attitude have been the same? Think about it.

Sid, when the team is bad, people start getting disillusioned. And that ultimately leads to indifference. As you yourself conceded, in your last point, that English attitude would have been different towards ODIs had they won in 1992 (or 1987 even).

But indifference doesnt really mean they dont care for the format (perhaps less than tests, but they still do). After all, its not really a democracy where they have a control over what team they get. So they shrug and move ahead…and come back when they are ‘given’ a better team with better results.

I would dare say the same thing would happen even in India. Don’t you remember how disillusioned the people became at the time of match-fixing scandals. But thankfully, in our case, the on-field performances never plumetted the depths that English ODI cricket has, and therefore the masses ‘came back’

Despite being someone who prefers Test matches over one-dayers,someone who (like others above) has lost a lot of interest in ODIs,I will defend them here.

Test cricket is still the ultimate to any real cricketer-it is the biggest test of technique,period. But not the biggest test of temperament. It could be argued that Test cricket is a better judge of temperament-but that applies only in certain situations (for example when battling to save the team in a precarious position). But usually,Test cricket actually allows a quality player more time to really settle in,specifically in the first innings. There is no hurry to get things going-unlike one-day cricket,where you cannot afford to rest and must continually be on your toes.

how many close run chases have we seen? how good were they as tests of character and temperament and ability? what speaks more of the class of yuvraj,for example (yes,i’m avoiding a pakistani example on purpose) when he comes in on a terrible pitch at abu dhabi and,where practically no one could time the ball and stroke it fluently,yuvraj nonchalantly smashes 18 in quick time?

the problem is not odi cricket itself-the problemn is overkill. and i will blame the indian board for that more than anything else…as well as the windies…7 ODIs is just too much…and yes, the PCB should be criticized for scheduling too many international and offshore matches…yes,familiarity does breed contempt….and it might be hard to belive,but mark my words,have an ashes every year and after the third one in a row you’ll be crying out for mercy….believe it or not,flintoff vs warne WILL lose its charm…and you can’t expect flintoff and warne to play in all three series….already flintoff is injured for the ashes this winter…and i doubt he will be able to reproduce last year’s performance…

anyway…getting back to the point….overkill is ruining ODI cricket..just as an example…India vs Pakistan 2004 was a definite high for Indian fans…but not so much India vs Pakistan playing each other at Abu Dhabi in 2006….in fact many people were not even interested…

familiarity does breed contempt.

but don’t condemn ODI cricket for that.

While it’s true that England cricket supporters would take more of an interest in ODI if England had won a World Cup, or had had a better team in the last 15 years, I also think that, similar to what I take to be the situation in Australia, Test cricket, especially against front line teams, would continue to interest the majority of cricket followers more. Much more, in fact.

With sides scoring at 4 an over quite regularly in Test cricket, and, generally speaking, boundaries placed at a suitable distance from the pitch, attending one of the first three days of a Test can provide just as much spectacle as a ODI. Often, as I’ve pointed out before, much more, as a ODI can be all over by well before the half way point.

Another consideration is fielding, which is just as good in Tests as in the one day game (thanks to a large extent to the one day game) - except the fielders have more than 60 yards in which to try and cut off a boundary or make a catch.

One-day cricket has acted as a midwife to bring better (at least, more watchable) criket into the world. If only she could take a back seat now - recognising that her work is done! Fat chance, of course…but old fogies can dream.