Is ODI Cricket Losing Its Relevance?

[TheJediBrah]

The loss of tours that would include an ODI and a test series hasn't helped as all the ODI series now seem to happen at random. Playing 3 ODIs before a home Ashes series felt like a good appetiser. However, as @Chin Music says we then had overkill as series extended to 7 matches, often at the end of tours, that just dragged on. Then standalone 7 match series etc.

I'm still an advocate that for tours that are less high profile, the women's approach of having multi-format scoring to decide the series winners should be used.

Peak ODIs outside World Cups were the tri-series IMO. If we're talking in England, the NatWest series' before the Ashes in 2001 and 2005 were great fun, better than a meaningless 3 game series. And it was always very popular in Australia every year for a couple decades (even if the neutral games didn't always get a good crowd).

The late 90s/early 00s might have gone overboard a bit with the Sharjah tournaments but in moderation that was what ODI cricket was all about for me growing up