ODIs in desperate need of course-correction

Born out of accident rather than necessity in the early 1970s, men’s One-Day International cricket is desperately in need of oxygen. The World Cup, the showpiece event of the 50-over game, carries the additional responsibility of ensuring that interest in the format doesn’t wane entirely, a huge cross to bear given with how much apathy it is being treated by the powers that be.

Three washed-out days at the start of a Test match in Melbourne in January 1971 led to the abandonment of the said Test, with a limited-overs match – 40 eight-ball overs per innings – being played between Australia and England. It was the start of a journey that led to the first men’s World Cup in 1975, and a couple of years later Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket which threatened the core fabric of the international game.

Initially dismissed as Pyjama cricket, coloured clothing, white balls, black sightscreens and floodlights quickly became the norm. As the stars were welcomed back by their respective countries from World Series Cricket, the limited-overs format gradually seeped into and then took over the consciousness of the average fan. The guarantee of a result in a little over seven hours as against the genuine possibility of a dreary stalemate after five days of Test cricket at a time when teams were desperately determined not to lose more than seeking ways to win was instantly appealing to audiences who packed the stadiums for limited-overs games.

India’s victory in the 1983 World Cup and the subsequent successful bid by India and Pakistan to host the 1987 event sent ODI cricket’s popularity soaring sky-high. Test cricket’s sustained dalliance with conservatism further contributed to a surfeit of limited-overs action and at one point, there were serious concerns over the upstart gobbling up the traditional.

Against this backdrop, it’s unedifying to witness 50-over cricket gasping for breath now, suffocated as it is by the abridged 20-over format and other variants such as T10 and The Hundred that offer even more instant gratification. With attention spans getting shorter and the goalposts of 50-over cricket constantly shifting to create an unseemly imbalance between bat and ball, it is no longer the crowd-pulling spectacle of the past, lurching unsteadily in the wake of Test cricket, rejuvenated specifically by England’s fearless approach pigeonholed as ‘Bazball’ and the more eye-catching overs-limited versions that populate the cricketing landscape.

One of the primary factors behind the 50-over game failing to excite and exhilarate like it used to is the use of one new ball at each end. Under the mistaken and unverified conviction that fans come only to watch the ball soaring deep into and beyond the stands, playing conditions have been altered to all but take bowlers out of the equation. Reduced to serfs running in and delivering the ball so that batters can do their bidding, bowlers of all ilk have attempted gamely to add new skills to their repertoire. But their best designs have been thwarted by a combination of standardised tracks beautiful for batting across the globe, field restrictions that necessitate at least five fielders inside the 30-yard circle for 40 overs, better bats, smaller grounds and the two new balls that have seriously undermined two crucial aspects of bowling – reverse swing and spin.

At the end of a full ODI innings, no ball is older than 25 overs. That, allied with smooth tracks and lush green outfields, preclude the natural scuffing up of the ball and resultant reverse swing that was once used to devastating effect by Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Zaheer Khan. With most surfaces hardly assisting the spinners, not even the most skilled have been able to make a sustained impact. Hence the need for ‘mystery spinners’, who breeze in and hold sway for a brief while before the novelty factor wanes and they get found out, as happened with Sri Lankan Ajantha Mendis.

It’s astonishing how, despite almost every development counter-productive to the organic development of the 50-over format, the World Cup continues to thrive and attract eyeballs by the millions. The main reason for that is context. Country versus country bilateral ODI series are often no more than a necessary evil – necessary largely for the broadcasters and other financial stakeholders. They don’t enthuse the players themselves and they don’t always energise the fans beyond traditional cricketing pockets like Australia and England, and in India where the spectators can never have enough of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, for instance. The scrapping of the ODI Super League, which formed the basis for automatic qualification to the World Cup, is another inexplicable move that will further diminish the already dimming aura around 50-over cricket.

It hasn’t helped, of course, that far too many teams have slipped dramatically down the ladder and that competition therefore is restricted to only a handful of sides. West Indies’ absence from a 50-over World Cup for the first time is a realistic portrayal of the inexorable shifting of the balance of power. Why, therefore, would the Caribbean fan turn up at Queen’s Park Oval, knowing that his team had little chance of putting it past Australia, England or India?

Alarming as 50-over cricket’s precipitous fall from grace might be, this isn’t a downslide that can’t be arrested. But for that, it’s incumbent upon the International Cricket Council, sitting on numerous other cash cows, to initiate course-correction, post-haste. Levelling the playing field, ensuring greater relevance and offering a more entertaining spectacle are the obvious starting points towards that end.

(Author is a senior cricket writer)