ODI cricket has some life left

The 7th edition of the Champions Trophy was a success, with the final match of the ODI tournament virtually being a T20 game, With uncertainty over the tournament’s future, the ICC annual meet and its decisions, the past week or two have left cricket followers and pundits with a horde of issues to ponder and discuss about. India will hold the Champions Trophy forever; in four years time we will have the inaugural Test Championship and the T20 World Cup will now be an event with a 4-year cycle.

Perceptions can change quickly and the outlook about the Champions Trophy and the Test Championship has changed drastically over the last 5 years; from ridiculing the existence of the 8-nation ODI tourney to being apprehensive about the Test Championship. On-field action has been a prime reason to this perspective transition. With the World Cup already in place, the Champions Trophy was struggling to notch up USP features, both in terms of context and frequency. The discrepancy between the actual performances and the position on the rankings table for Tests was shouting out for a better relative scale. With these decisions, the ICC has shown first signs of tinkering with the way Test cricket is contested, and a few things about the vision of the governing body with respect to limited overs cricket.

There were judicious voices expressing redundancy of the 50-over format itself over the last 5-6 years. Two consecutive ICC events (2011 World Cup and 2013 Champions Trophy) have illustrated that the format is still good enough if context can marry scheduling. In order of preference, the World Cup outweighs everything else, but the Champions Trophy probably has the better formatting, not only in terms of length but also in terms of number of lopsided match-ups. But this ideology keeps the associate teams out of the big stage and doesn’t aid the ultimate objective of the sport – to be recognized on the ‘global’ forum.

Is there a way which can achieve the essence of the pinnacle of a sport – excluding the disparity in the subset of an event, yet achieve its significance of crowning a world-beater? For a concentrated sport like cricket, inclusion of a couple of associate nations (picked via qualifying tournaments) during World Cups has been the way thus far. The major concern with the waning bonding with ODI cricket is the numerous avoidable bilateral/triangular series. The Test playing nations rarely play against non-Test playing teams between two World Cup editions.

Can we amalgamate the two discrete observations? The top 16-20 sides (full members plus associates combined) can be separated into two pools with equal distribution of Test playing nations. Each team will play the remaining teams in the group between the 4 years of two world cups; in which India vs Australia can be a 5-match series and India vs Afghanistan can be a 2-match series. Each match will carry a value which adds up cumulatively till the succeeding World Cup.

Thus, every match will have a context and each series can be an indirect step towards globalizing the sport with a greater frequency. The top 4/5 sides of each pool can then qualify for the main event which can have a condensed nature like the one for Champions Trophy. There will be issues with this structure, primarily those of logistics and broadcast/marketing, as each match will invariably be an ICC qualifier contest. For a well connected world, travel and logistics can hardly be an excuse. The 4 year window shouldn’t hinder scheduling and time frames.

The 3 formats of the game are at completely different stages on the respective timelines, with each having its respective share of overhaul requirements. While the decision in favour of Test championship should be welcomed, the 4 year cycle of T20 world cup is a tad ambiguous. To be fair, ODI cricket is on the wrong side of its shelf life, but surely there is still some life left. The 50-over World Cup is cricket’s flagship event and there is no threat to its existence, at least in the near future. The concern is about what happens between the 4 years of this marquee event. If not the above structure, there needs to be something else which can ensure that inconsequential-esque hordes of ODI series assume better adjectives than boring, cumbersome and unexciting!