ICC Cricket World Cup 2011
The last few weeks has seen some riveting cricket action and has been the perfect advertisement for ODI cricket. Whether it is the minnows Bangladesh whitewashing the Kiwis, young guns Raina and Kohli steering India home, Razzaq taking the game by the scruff of its neck or a Sri Lankan pair play out of their skins to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, One Day International cricket has seen it all in the past one month.
With the rise and advent of the glamorous format named the 20-20 or the T20, tongues began wagging and questions began to be raised about the existence of ODI cricket. “What is the need to play an 8 hour game when a 3 hour game provides the same entertainment?” was the question being asked. The ICC began to panic and started contemplating revamping the 50 over format into a two innings game; each innings split into blocks of 20 and 25 overs. But the last month of nailbiting cricket action showed that One Day International cricket can exist coherently along with T20s and Test Match cricket.
Test Match cricket is in a league of its own and playing Test cricket for his nation remains the ultimate aim for every budding cricketer. T20, on the other hand, is a guaranteed 3 hour adrenaline pumping entertainment where even a few nonsensical shots can change the course of a game.
But ODI cricket has managed to retain a charm of its own. It is not all slam-bang action as the T20s and a batsman definitely won’t be forgiven for getting out to a nonsensical shot. ODI cricket requires immense planning and execution for a batsman to build a long innings, keeps the captains to remain on their toes throughout with their field placements and selection of Powerplays and allows the spinners to pursue their craft of flighting the ball as they know they won’t be attacked from Ball one.
T20 might be a good advertisement for cricket but an overdose of it might just kill the game. The third season of the IPL certainly didn’t have as many eyeballs glued to the television as the first two seasons nor did the Champions League of 2010. In contrast the twists and turns provided by the ODIs between South Africa-Pakistan and Sri Lanka-Australia left the viewers gasping for more.
As a cricket crazy fanatic, all I hope for is the existence of all 3 formats of the game; the success of one not threatening the existence of the other. If the recent results are the way to go, then one can safely conclude that ODIs are here to stay and I am optimistic that the upcoming ICC Cricket World Cup will establish this point.
Tags: Cricket, ICC, ODI Cricket, One Day International Cricket, Powerplays
