Death or glory? World Cup anchors changing game of one-day cricket
cricket and a chance to show how the 50-over game has evolved since India last staged the tournament in 2011.
One of the criticisms of ODIs, once the economic driving force of the global game, is that they are too often reduced to ‘meaningless’ bilateral series.
The format is also viewed as too pedestrian in the slipstream of the high velocity, smash-and-grab T20 format. “The ODI has been reduced to virtually depending on a World Cup year for its importance,” wrote former Australia captain Ian Chappell in a recent ESPNCricinfo column.
Meanwhile, India great Sachin Tendulkar, a 2011 World Cup winner, believes the format is now too formulaic.
“The game is becoming too predictable,” he said. “From the 15th to the 40 over, it’s losing its momentum.
It’s getting boring.” And yet the ODI remains a key plank of the International Cricket Council’s schedule, with the 50-over format still capable of providing an entertaining spectacle.
Perhaps the biggest onfield development since 2011 has been the change in what constitutes a big total. There’ve been 24 occasions on which 400 has been passed in ODI cricket and 15 of those have come since the 2011 World Cup.
The 2011 final saw India reach a target of 275 with just 10 balls to spare. But in an age where World Cup-holders England have lifted the world record for an ODI total to 444 in 2016, 481 in 2018 and 498, against the Netherlands, last year, 275 rarely represents a challenging target.
Yet for all the prevalence of shorter boundaries and the impact of the wider range of shot-making developed by T20 cricket on all other formats, ODIs are not always run-fests.
The very length of a 50-over game allows for the possibilities of both bowlers getting on top and teams recovering
