Is it time to bury the ODI?

[GautiMaan]

is it time to bury the ODI? As far as the limited-overs formats go, the 50-overs game has showed it has probably outlived its usefulness Sanjay Manjrekar The success of Twenty20 cricket, in the form of the mushrooming of domestic leagues around the world, is accompanied by concern about the future of Test and ODI cricket. Some of us have already signed a death warrant on these two more traditional forms of the game; that is obviously a hasty and dramatic conclusion. Cricket is actually at a very interesting stage in its evolution and it's too early to say where this game will be in 20 years' time; what we see today are only trends. One sight that shook me last year, though, was that of a half-full stadium when India played England on a Sunday afternoon in an official ODI. This year the same stadium, the Wankhede, was packed to capacity for a domestic IPL game featuring Mumbai Indians and Kolkata Knight Riders. Going forward I think it is 50-overs cricket, not Test cricket, that is more vulnerable as a format with the arrival of T20 in general and the IPL in particular. The main reason being that Test cricket is so completely different from T20 cricket that it will never be in competition with it. That will remain Test cricket's great strength. T20 is the new, faster-paced version of 50-overs cricket, like a new processor in a computer, which mostly does the same things but quicker. As I said earlier, recognising trends is important. The need for the constant tweaking of one-day rules is telling us something about one-day cricket. In today's world it is just not exciting the masses as much as it used to. T20 seems to have whetted the appetite for shorter, faster-paced cricket. It would be a mistake to assume that the success of the last World Cup was a success of 50-overs cricket. That tournament was a hit because it was a World Cup, where nearly every match had relevance, unlike with most ODIs held every year. Also, the fact that many of the games were played in India added to the thrill and festivity. India doing well and reaching the final also assured a large fan following for the event right through. Outside of that, I have had a problem with one-day cricket for a while now. Like its name suggests, it is cricket with limits - a format that never fully extended itself. A lot of cricketers with limited talents - bits-and-pieces cricketers, in-betweeners, neither very good batsmen nor very good bowlers - made long careers out of it. Neither this nor that, that is what 50-overs cricket is now, and that is its big weakness, which makes it the most dispensable form of the game today. One-day cricket did some real good when it arrived on the scene, but we don't realise how much damage it has also done to cricket as we knew it. I remember the great Kapil Dev once telling me how one-day cricket had almost killed his outswinger. Kapil was forced to bowl a lot straighter than he would normally do, just to be economical in ODIs and also to make sure that he wasn't wided by the umpire every time that beautiful outswinger swung a little more. It was with great effort that Kapil finally got his outswinger back - which, he said, was by training himself to think like a Test bowler even when playing one-dayers. Take a hard, critical look at it and you will see that ODI cricket has slowly but surely helped rid the game of pace, swing, spin, and harmed the techniques of batsmen and bowlers, and negatively affected the basic cricketing skills that made the game worth watching Bowlers in one-day cricket stopped thinking in terms of taking wickets long ago and started thinking instead of stopping runs being scored. Bowlers in ODIs became like men pulling out water pistols in a wild-west gunfight. Think of how much harm this basic change in mindset has done to the sport as a spectacle. For a large chunk of a 50-overs innings - from the 15th to the 40th - we have a situation where a batting team is happy to get four runs an over and the opposition is happy to concede them. Where is the contest? Fifty-over cricket has also ensured the flattening-out of pitches, giving rise to a breed of successful attacking batsmen who hit through the line without moving their feet. Take a hard, critical look at it and you will see that ODI cricket has slowly but surely helped rid the game of pace, swing, spin, and harmed the techniques of batsmen and bowlers, and negatively affected the basic cricketing skills that made the game worth watching.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/568997.html **** off manju,its a format many like and india does well in it,were u sleeping during the WC matches and the last ball finishes that happened since then?go and bury your test cricket

[ganeshran]

:finger: Manju Why are cricket columnists busy trying to write obituaries of one or more formats. On one hand Ramiz says International cricket is dying, some editor of cricinfo says tests are dying, now Manju is predicting doom for ODIs All three formats are doing quite well enough simultaneously.

[asterix]

^ I now get bored following any ODI. Each innings take so long to end..

[Sehwag1830]

Dhoni would hire a contract killer for Manju.

[adi B]

screw u a hole manjrekar...stfu..odi cricket is my favorite format nd india are good enough only in this format... u better shove ur **** off mofo

[siddhu]

what does he have to say about test crowds then.. which are even less compared to ODIs.

[panesarv]

I've been saying this for long. T20s are here to stay and so is Test Cricket. Who cares about ODIs....

[Crookbond]

Isn't Manjrekar entitled to his opinion? :dontknow:

[Marut]

T20s will destroy ODIs anyways. Especially if they continue to play meaningless bilateral ODI series. Only test cricket and T20 will survive in the long run unless they spce up the ODIs.

[vvvslaxman]

Isn't Manjrekar entitled to his opinion? :dontknow:

Readers are entitled to their opinons as well :cantstop:

[vvvslaxman]

T20 is the new, faster-paced version of 50-overs cricket, like a new processor in a computer, which mostly does the same things but quicker. :hysterical: Oh manju

[Ultimate_Game]

Naah. I prefer odis over T20. In odis you need to at least play "proper" cricket and build an innings as a batsman. For a bowler you still get 10 overs to show-case their skills. T20 is more about bits & pieces players where the better team may not win. Granted it may happen in odi as well but not to such an extent. Ideally I would have Tests, 60 overs odi and T20 with World Cup being the 60 overs one where batsmen like Dravid and Rahane would be more than useful.

[GautiMaan]

Isn't Manjrekar entitled to his opinion? :dontknow:

ofc,but his know it all tone and baseless arguments are annoying

[vvvslaxman]

This gotta be one of the dumbest pieces i have read in a while :hysterical:

[GautiMaan]

This gotta be one of the dumbest pieces i have read in a while :hysterical:

The idiot contradicts himself every third line:hysterical: Kapil lost his outswinger due to ODI's but an even more unforgiving format of t20 would not affect bowlers skills,wtf

[Spiderguy252]

Sigh......Manjrekar. So you're advocating more T20 eh? You're a hopeless buffoon, mate. How much has the BCCI paid you?

[Vilander]

Sanju manju is the greatest cricketer india ever produced.

[Marut]

It is obvious from some of the reasoning advanced in the article that Manju is a paid spokesman for BCCI.

[CasualVisitor]

Emphatic yes! For the puritans it is Test cricket and for the adrenaline junkies it is T20. Draw curtains on ODIs.

[CG]

He has been saying the same thing for few years now,I think time will come when we will have less odis and more t20 series .Odis were created to get crowds and results .Nowadays t20 does the same .