In the past few years there have been talks of shortening ODI matches because experts believe that one-day internationals are a bit too long and people now don’t have time to watch seven-hour-long matches as a result it has become commercially challenging for the stakeholders to incorporate ODI matches as the viewership of bilateral ODI matches have decreased significantly since 2019 50 over world cup which England won.
Experts have made various suggestions to revive ODI cricket and one of them is shortening an ODI match to 40 overs per side which sounds interesting as it can be looked at as playing two T20 matches which can be a good way of promoting the new format. Some experts believe there is no point in playing bilateral ODI series and teams should only face each other in 50 over the world cup.
What did the MCC say
The MCC has reacted to all the suggestions and speculations and said it is considering reducing the number of ODI matches after the 2027 ODI world cup. The MCC’s world cricket committee recently met at lord’s to discuss the fate of ODI cricket. It recommended decreasing the number of bilateral ODI matches after 2027 to improve the quality of cricket.
The 13-member committee, led by former England captain Mike Gatting, is hopeful that “a scarcity of ODI cricket would increase the quality, achieved by removing bilateral ODIs, other than in the one year preceding each World Cup. This would, as a consequence, also create much-needed space in the global cricketing calendar.”
The Financial Part
With the massive growth of T20 leagues around the world and international players like Andre Russell Jason Roy Sunil Narine prioritizing franchise cricket reducing ODI cricket seems to be the right decision which will create much-needed room for various leagues and will also help the ICC and various cricket boards to become financially stable as the money injected in ODI cricket can be put to other use.
The ICC has been quite vocal about expanding the sport and keeping that in mind it has given T20 status to more than 100 countries who will get to play more matches after the reduction of One Day Internationals.
