Return of the sixty over ODI?

[Arjun]

The sixty overs of ODIs were reduced to 50 overs in the late 1980s when cricket was played in the subcontinent, due to shorter daylight hours in the region, as it was said then. Now, we have floodlights in most international venues, and the limited-overs game gets shorter with T20, panned for becoming too much like baseball. Is there scope for the sixty-over ODI to return, at least to 'restore a little sanity' in cricket? Now, there's a chance, as shorter daylight hours are no longer a concern, but with all these billboard tournaments turning up, fatigue will be a factor again.

[Fusion]

I cannot imagine that the powers-that-be would want to increase the time it takes to play an ODI, or any format of cricket. In fact, they are talking about 4 day Tests!. TV people wouldn't be interested in it at all, and if there’s no money then there’s no possibility of it happening.

[Richard]

I don't neccessarily know about that. 50-over cricket is repeatedly being described - erroneously, to date, but it might eventually come true - as a format which has seen its best days past.

Most people will not be familiar with 60-over cricket; it was only ever played in the ODI format in the 1975, 1979 and 1983 World Cups, and never aside from that. I'm not aware of it being played in domestic cricket anywhere, ever, except the Gillette\NatWest\C&G\FP Trophy in England (that's been 50 overs since 1999). Old non-WC ODIs in England did used to be 55 overs, but even that ended some time back now; the old eight-ball-over ODIs in Australia were 40-over matches.

However, most genuine cricket fans (ie, those who like four\five-day cricket) who have experienced both tend to agree that 60-over cricket > 50-over cricket. If the 50-over ODI truly does become an endangered species at some point, going for 60-over games (which were not possible on a large scale until fairly recently - last 15 years or so - without day\night facilities) would be a far better idea than anything else.

What ODI cricket needs is to become less like Twenty20. 60-over cricket would do just this; most other changes mooted have tended to be along the lines of "how can we make ODIs more like Twenty20", which is precisely the wrong way to be going about things.

[GingerFurball]

No it wouldn't.

The whole point of ODI cricket is to generate revenue for the game.

My main complaint, and I'm not alone in thinking this, is that the middle overs of an ODI can often make for terrible watching. Adding 10 more of those overs is not going to draw fans back to the game.

[Noble One]

Unlikely to ever occur again.

I can imagine some terribly one-sided and dull contests. Not my idea of a fun day at the cricket watching South Africa pile on 5/440 runs off 60 overs, then watch Bangladesh creep towards 8/200 off 60.

[SJS]

Why would one want to do that? One can even move from that to an 80 over or a hundred over (two day) limited over game to be played over the weekend but that is merely saying - kill Test cricket. The format that needs to be saved is not the limited over one but the longer version.

By tinkering with the length (in terms of actual playing time (read overs) we are just trying to attack the incidental issues. The same was done when the one day format was started to get crowds back since they were not coming for the longer version. What should have been done then was to do something about getting the crowds back to the longer version by attacking the real issues.

This idea of just increasing the number of overs in ODI's is another similar reaction which will never address the problem at hand.

[Fusion]

SJS - what steps in your opinion need to be taken for the crowds to come back to Test cricket?

[funnygirl]

Let us see how day-night test matches go on.For working people that may be more convenient to watch the game,i mean high profile series.In any case pitch will play god factor always.

[Kweek]

Originally Posted by Fusion

SJS - what steps in your opinion need to be taken for the crowds to come back to Test cricket?

valid question, hoping SJS will answer this...

[andruid]

Originally Posted by GingerFurball

No it wouldn't.

The whole point of ODI cricket is to generate revenue for the game.

My main complaint, and I'm not alone in thinking this, is that the middle overs of an ODI can often make for terrible watching. Adding 10 more of those overs is not going to draw fans back to the game.

]

AWTA

Originally Posted by Fusion

SJS - what steps in your opinion need to be taken for the crowds to come back to Test cricket?

I'm not SJS, but I reckon a wider audience needs to be given some kind of stake in proceedings for the format. There is only so many people you can convince to pick up a sport like test cricket if there is no chance there own team will vere be an active participant.

Some may say that the game is effectively running on money from Indian, Aussie and English fans, and whilst they certainly have loads of mullah to invest in follwing their boys i reckon it is unsustainable in the long term.

Some may lokk down on the idea of some mminnows playing test cricket, but hey there needs to be dome format for these teams to dvelop rivalries amongst each other that can draw fan, revenue etc and just now the LOI is not quite getting there.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by GingerFurball

My main complaint, and I'm not alone in thinking this, is that the middle overs of an ODI can often make for terrible watching. Adding 10 more of those overs is not going to draw fans back to the game.

It's a complaint people are prone to wildly exaggerate, and the whole point of adding another 10 overs to them is that it'd cause a totally different course of action to be taken, especially with the option of Powerplays.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by Noble One

Unlikely to ever occur again.

I can imagine some terribly one-sided and dull contests. Not my idea of a fun day at the cricket watching South Africa pile on 5/440 runs off 60 overs, then watch Bangladesh creep towards 8/200 off 60.

Even more important than changing 50 overs to 60 is removing nonsense non-contest games from the schedule. ODIs simply cannot afford such wastes of time.