The Future of Cricket

Cricket is a sport whose future has always been up for debate, has always been tinkered with, changed to cope with the times. Twenty20 cricket is cricket's latest fad with change, a format of the game designed to reach out to the younger, busier generation who don't really have the time to watch a day of cricket or just want another form of entertainment that doesn't involve kicking a ball.

No doubt Twenty20 cricket is clearly on the ascendancy as its all-over-in-3-hours format is great for TV and for getting bigger crowds to stadia. Certainly, the emphasis on big hits has given marketing departments a dream to work with and more sponsors want to get involved in cricket's form of the Big Mac.

But where does that leave 50 over cricket? Some former players and commentators like former England captain, Mike Atherton, believe that 50 over cricket will have to be discarded as cricket will not be able to support and sustain 3 forms of the game in the future.

More in this article on Stuff.co.nz - http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/cricket/8310717/One-dayers-fast-becoming-elephant-in-room

One must remember that less than 40 years ago, 50 over cricket was what Twenty20 cricket is today. It helped to take cricket into the 21st century - no longer was cricket a sport that required a week to follow a game. 50 over cricket meant you could watch a game of cricket in a day and usually come away with a result. 50 over cricket also introduced bigger and riskier shots and certainly has helped to make the traditional test matches far more exciting affairs as cricketers have figured out new and novel ways to score runs faster and get out batsmen.

The days when 50-over cricket was the show to watch in town

It is obvious that 50 over cricket is a bit like the DVD - brilliant only so recently but superseded by better technologies, i.e. Blu-ray, hard and cloud disks. However, like DVDs, they still have some purpose in the current age and shouldn't be discarded.

For me, I thought 50 over cricket had had its day a couple of years ago when the ICC launched the Twenty20 World Series in 2007. Back then, the ICC had endured a torrid 50 over Cricket World Cup in the West Indies, scarred by controversy and some lacklustre cricket. However, 50 over cricket has surprisingly made a bit of a comeback thanks to rule changes and of course, players still keen to see that form of cricket played.

The 2011 Cricket World Cup was probably the best edition the world had seen in a long time and it certainly has helped to get interest back into the 50 over game.

New Zealand cricket's success in recent times has been in 50 over cricket

However, how long will 50 over cricket's mini-comeback last? While the likes of England and Australia still play series of five 50 over games bookended by one or two Twenty20s, the likes of New Zealand and South Africa have given 3 games of 50 overs and Twenty20s each, putting equal importance on both forms of the one day version of the game. In fact, you could say this was coming all along - and to be fair, I do prefer what New Zealand Cricket have done recently as we did have to endure too many meaningless 50 over cricket games in the past and those series did feel like they could just drag on and on.

Which brings me to my other point, the ICC and national cricket boards must be careful not to overwork the goose that laid the golden egg. Twenty20 cricket's slump will come - and in fact might be already evident in the likes of the IPL and KFC Big Bash League where crowds and interest have waned in the seasons after the first (this may be down to 2nd season syndrome though). Perhaps, 50 over cricket's decline was attributed by the fact that too many of them were played over time, that when Twenty20 cricket arrived, it was a bit of a release for the crowd who flocked to the new format.

One wonders what formats cricket administrators will come up in the future - 10/10 cricket? Surely not, but mind you no one would have thought that 20 overs a side constituted a respectable game of cricket say 20 years ago.