Unequal battles pull down ODIS
Thrilling finishes have gone down over the last three decades, taking sheen off 50over cricket in T20 era
NEW DELHI : You might think all is well with 50-overs cricket with the Asia Cup ending with a lastball thriller few days after a tie between the format’s strongest and the youngest. Only, these results are now a routine affair in T20 leagues around the year.
Purists will cringe at the comparison, but there is no denying the shortest form is here to stay. What about one-dayers? The International Cricket Council (ICC) has tried to keep ODIS relevant through a two-year league that also doubles up as qualifiers to the 2023 World Cup. That also meant pulling the plug on the Champions Trophy, and tri-series that have been on the wane in the last decade after the ICC’S Future Tours Programme became a binding agreement. Last of those marquee tournaments was the tri-series in Australia that was done away with in 2008, the year cricket saw a revolution with the IPL launch.
The repackaging, however, may still not be enough. An ODI still takes up more than seven hours while the monotony of a bilateral series can put off viewers reared on a decade of T20 entertainment. The biggest concern though is the growing trend of lopsided matches, mostly against associate teams.
RISING INEQUALITY
A decade-wise breakup of ODIS shows how one-sided matches have increased. The 1980s were ruled by West Indies but Australia, Pakistan, India, England and New Zealand were more or less on equal footing, above new entrants Sri Lanka. That’s why victories by a margin of 100 runs or with 100 balls to spare were just a handful.
That percentage rose sharply over the next two decades, mainly due to the qualification of associate nations in ICC and Asian Cricket Council (ACC) tournaments — Canada, UAE, Namibia, Scotland, Netherlands and Bermuda among the worst teams. India’s five biggest wins have come against Bermuda, Hong Kong, Bangladesh, New Zealand and Kenya. This spike in huge victories in terms of runs is particularly disconcerting.
In the 1980s, it was 12.55% but that jumped to 16.04% in the 1990s, 27% in the 2000s and 29.27% now. In the last five years that figure hasn’t dip below 30%, meaning almost a third of the wins by teams batting first have been by 100 runs or more.
Not just associate nations, even Zimbabwe and Bangladesh — given permanent ODI status before the turn of the century — haven’t been steady. Bangladesh have a win-loss ratio of 0.493 (349 matches, 113 wins, 229 losses, No Result 7). They are yet to win a multi-team event in 32 years of playing ODIS, Friday’s final being the closest they came to winning one. Zimbabwe have a win-loss ratio of 0.373 (511 matches, 134 wins, 359 losses, NR 11) and are still to win a multi-team tournament involving a Test team in 35 years.
Unfair matchups are not the only reason. Alien pitch conditions for visiting sides and the dew factor play havoc with results. That is why India have won just once in seven tours of New Zealand but defeated them every time at home. T20 cricket is too short for these factors to influence the outcome, ensuring an even field. The same can’t be said about its 50-over sibling though.
AN ODI STILL TAKES UP MORE THAN SEVEN HOURS WHILE THE MONOTONY OF A BILATERAL SERIES CAN PUT OFF VIEWERS REARED ON A DECADE OF T20 ENTERTAINMENT