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Loading ...I think all three formats can servive together but innovative minds like ICL in India & Stanford 20/20 in Caribbean might commercialize the game of cricket more than it needs to.
Time to test ICC’s managing skills.
Rest in peace, 50-over cricket?
By Will last year, at the end of September Leave a comment on this post
Today’s match, the final of the World Twenty20, was a real cracker; a low-scoring thriller decided in the final over. A fitting finale (if not tribute) to the tournament, some are saying. And I dread to think of India’s reaction to it all. “The greatest day in Indian cricket history!” will be a penned as a headline, somewhere, on a newspaper, website, blog or city wall shortly I’m sure.
But hang on a minute. Is this tournament a viable replacement, as many advocate it should be, to 50-over cricket, a format that has been in place for 45 years? Are we not shortening the games for shortening’s sake?
One-dayers began as 65 overs. Then they were reduced to 60; cut to 50; snipped to 40; bolstered to 45 before levelling off at 50. Until the ECB, panicking at a decline in gate receipts, thought they’d try something new and they cut the whole thing in half again.
Twenty20 appears to have re-energised an ageing format (and game), and so it has. But how long before this too becomes stale and we watch hour-long Ten10 games?
My hunch is that we’re a few years away from Twenty20 becoming the dominant one-day format, but I’m sure it’ll happen. It’s fun, it’s new and different but it’s still one-day cricket and, thus, it sucks rather a lot. As long as they leave Tests well alone; in fact I think Inzamam-ul-Haq wants them extended to six days! Much, much more like it.
Your thoughts please.
Tags: 50-over cricket, one-day-cricket, twenty20, twenty20 cricket, world twenty20 |
19 Responses to “Rest in peace, 50-over cricket?”
September 24th, 2007 at 11.08 pm
September 25th, 2007 at 2.10 am
Haven’t the ICC sold off ODI World Cup rights up to 2015 for over a billion US dollars? If the ICC act too independently to promote Twenty20 over ODIs, ESPN-Star might go nuclear to protect their investment. This is the sort of situation made for renegotiation, and if ESPN-Star get dealt in on the Tw-20 rights for the next decade, I’m sure they’ll demand insurance in the form of the ICC killing off ODIs.
Personally I’d like to see the timeless Test return, if only as an experiment. Probably the only way Oz can get revenge for the great disaster of 1938.
September 25th, 2007 at 3.26 am
I can’t help but wonder what the players think of this format - do they really enjoy it? Is that how they want to be remembered? For being able to slog 6 sixes in a row? All those years of hard work, carefully working on their weak shots or changing their bowling action, thrown out the window for the organizers’ commercial gains and crowds with short attention spans.
This format really lost its sparkle for me, when I saw Sri Lanka - a superlative, varied, gifted team - crushed without any possibility of having the time to stage a comeback. That game said nothing much about their skills, just about luck. It seemed so pointless. Was that sport? it wasn’t even entertaining. Yet this looks like it will be the norm for Twenty20.
I notice the word “humiliate” coming up a lot recently, mainly in regard to Australian team, but also lots of fans enjoying Broad’s loss of face in his last over, and deriding him for it. Is the future of cricket as blood sport, then?
September 25th, 2007 at 8.15 am
“For being able to slog 6 sixes in a row? All those years of hard work, carefully working on their weak shots or changing their bowling action, thrown out the window for the organizers’ commercial gains and crowds with short attention spans.”
- have you seen the T20 world cup. Tell me how many 6’s were just slogs?
whatever the format the skill level remains the same, if not we would have seen kenya win the T20!
September 25th, 2007 at 8.32 am
I don’t know about “just” a slog, pamthree,
I saw about 6 matches, and every six hit was a slog. Perhaps you have a problem with the word “slog”? It doesn’t mean to say that it doesn’t have some skill in it.
But perhaps you don’t know much about cricket, if you think the same skills are used for all formats. Certainly a lot of the players interviewed didn’t think so. But what would they know!
September 25th, 2007 at 2.01 pm
Lets simlify cricket. 5 balls each side. everything else is filler. You could have the whole tournament on one day.
September 25th, 2007 at 2.08 pm
“I saw about 6 matches, and every six hit was a slog”
- i was not referring to aussie sixers. they were pure slogs!
September 25th, 2007 at 2.10 pm
ur blog is throwing sql errors
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September 25th, 2007 at 10.26 pm
Oh dear, pamthree, not a bit racist , are we?
Only Aussies’ slog, do they? No skill there, of course. They just win most things by luck, or umpire bias, or because other teams can’t be bothered, is that it?
September 25th, 2007 at 10.47 pm
pamthree is running round posting this derogatory comment about Kenya on a lot of cricket blogs, I notice.
September 26th, 2007 at 1.41 am
Twenty20 does not test a teams true mettle. The real fun is in the ups and downs of the game. In “steadying the ship” and “rebuilding with partnerships” which is difficult in a T20 game. While it is very very entertaining, it is not really cricket. It would be a sad day if ODI’s were replaced by T20.
I am all for the 50 over ODI being the dominant form with the odd T20 tourney thrown in.
Tests (when played aggressively) are always a pleasure to watch or listen to on TMS (bbc.co.uk/cricket)!
About Pamthree’s comment, I think he/she took offense to the six sixes in an over being referred to as slogs. Not one of the shots in that over was a slog, thats all.
September 26th, 2007 at 2.30 am
Judging by what I read from pamthree, here and on other blogs, he/she is giving as good as he/she gets. And saying Australians are the only ones who slog is just juvenile. So is belittling Kenya (a favourite team of mine).
September 26th, 2007 at 3.14 am
Aussie’s aren’t sloggers. Hayden doesn’t slog, he biffs. Gilly doesn’t slog, he flays.
September 26th, 2007 at 4.41 am
Good one, Chris! 
September 26th, 2007 at 6.23 am
“pamthree is running round posting this derogatory comment about Kenya on a lot of cricket blogs, I notice.”
- i noticed u as well posting ur t20 slogs. aussie aren’t you
but the question remains kenya at the moment does not possess the required skills hence even in t20 does not give them a opportunity to win( unlike what rust says )
“Only Aussies’ slog, do they? No skill there, of course. They just win most things by luck, or umpire bias, or because other teams can’t be bothered, is that it?”
- dude thats exactly what rusty said
“Oh dear, pamthree, not a bit racist , are we?”
- not going to respond to that. don’t like the idea of feeding trolls.
September 26th, 2007 at 6.32 am
“And saying Australians are the only ones who slog is just juvenile.”
- did u see the exclamation in my statement!!!
“So is belittling Kenya (a favourite team of mine).”
- you don’t need to show that ur a good guy. kenya was an example.
let me say again
- if wining a t20 game is down to luck then USA would have been the winners!
September 26th, 2007 at 6.28 pm
How does everyone think individual 20/20 games will be? It seems to me that 20/20 will only work in a competition format.
September 27th, 2007 at 8.26 am
I heard many top players from most countries expressing great reservations about Twenty20 during the tournament, and not just from sides who were losing. I think the players don’t mind it, but want it kept in its place and most consider Tests to still be the ultimate test. Daniel Vettori got in trouble for supposedly undermining his own team by expressing his reservations about the short game, even though he had practically the best figures in the tournament. I’m sure MS Dhoni thinks it’s the greatest game on earth right now, but we can forgive him that right now.
September 27th, 2007 at 8.43 am
Kathy,
I liked your comment, but why the poke at poor ol’ MSD at the end! I’m sure had England won you would NOT have said the same about Paul Collingwood!
~PseudoKu
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