The Necessity of the 50 over Game

[cricket_icon]

Mark Nicholas: Time 50-over cricket is nurtured and sustained | Cricinfo Magazine | ESPN Cricinfo

A great article by Mark Nicholas on the importance of the 50 over game. I know T20 is the hot new thing but I've always found it to be lacking in entertainment and intrigue when compared to it's older, wiser cousin. Recent tournament, first the world cup in India and then the Champions Trophy in England have proven 2 things:
1. If done right, they can pack in big crowds
2. When played between competitive teams, matches can be gripping from start to finish.

These two aspects need to be preserved and if they are to be preserved, the 50 over game has to be given space to breath and not just be tacked onto the end of an English summer or exhausted with 7 matches, such as those in India.

What are your opinions on the 50 over side of things?

 

[zeustrojanstark]

ODI series if played like a bi lateral series drives people mad. A world cup, a champions trophy or a tri nation series is good enough but just two teams and a 5 match series or a 7 match series is the worst thing in cricket now according to me. Three test matches and one T20 match will be the perfect schedule for a short tour.

 

[Owzat]

Too much is made of the supposed demise of 50 over matches, sure there are lulls in the action but cricket has never been about constant action.

Cricket will never draw big audiences, most people dismiss it as boring without ever giving it a chance. Any so called "fans" that choose T20 over other formats ain't really fans of cricket, they should take up baseball or football

Notice despite warnings "the end of cricket is nigh", that England vs Australia is still five Tests, five ODIs and only a couple of T20s for money mainly I would guess. They haven't cancelled the next World Cup, it's scaremongering and just another person voicing their view on something like they're an authority.

Nicholas was an ordinary cricketer, and smug pundit/presenter. Him, Aggers, Yawn and a fair few others just like the sound of their own voices and to sound like they know what they're talking about.

One of the worst things you can do with a game is keep changing it. You won't get hundreds of runs after the powerplay and before the climax of the innings, sides conserve their wickets so they can score quickly with wickets in hand. They brought in the batting powerplay, that just scares the batting side as it normally does more damage than good. Shows these "innovations" are just disruptive and not very welcome.

If they want high octane action, make the fields with only 2-3 outside the ring for all 50 overs, make the pitches swing all over the shop and give the bowlers several new balls. With the batsmen facing a choice, fight to survive or try and score, you'll get great matches. The problem is most thinking is runs = entertainment so we get scores about 50+ runs higher than back in the 90s and not a lot of entertainment.

If the ball is swinging you get batsmen playing and missing, edges, and tails scoring cameo innings and forcing panic in the bowlers. Even scores of 180-220 on a pitch helping the bowlers is defendable, you get a game not one side batting the other side out of it, or one side capitulating and the other coasting home.

And surprisingly more T20s are one sided than the format might suggest, I've never found them particularly entertaining. Some people think five card cribbage is more skilful than six, it isn't because one lucky hand of 12 can decide the short game, and indeed the box is mainly luck and that is too influential - how is that skillful?!?!?!? The normal scores are so low that luck plays a big factor, flawed logic suggests the fewer cards make it more skillful.

Then again the main advocate was a scrawny f'er so it isn't surprising he'd claim that. I ain't lucky at all, funny how I will win most games of six card crib what with being a better player

 

[sifter132]

The points about 50 over cricket are fair, and it definitely does have some charms. But speaking for myself, I've been fast forwarding the 10-35 over period of the innings every match I rewatch. There's just not a lot of interest in those overs for me. Opening bowlers that are actually attacking options are taken off so that they can save overs for the end. Bowling captains are happy to concede 4-5 an over, batting team is just trying to limit their dot balls and not do anything stupid. Neither team seems to want to work hard to actually stop the other team from achieving their mid innings goals. If we got rid of the stupid limitations on fielding positions, and the 10 over limit for bowlers, then I might get a bit more excited about ODIs. They are just tactically bland right now.

My ultimate vision is to ditch T20Is, merge them with ODIs and have a 35-40 over game. Still long enough to see 100s made and patience needed, but takes away the 'cheapness' of a 20 over match - just feels short and manufactured.

 

[cricket_icon]

The points about 50 over cricket are fair, and it definitely does have some charms. But speaking for myself, I've been fast forwarding the 10-35 over period of the innings every match I rewatch. There's just not a lot of interest in those overs for me. Opening bowlers that are actually attacking options are taken off so that they can save overs for the end. Bowling captains are happy to concede 4-5 an over, batting team is just trying to limit their dot balls and not do anything stupid. Neither team seems to want to work hard to actually stop the other team from achieving their mid innings goals. If we got rid of the stupid limitations on fielding positions, and the 10 over limit for bowlers, then I might get a bit more excited about ODIs. They are just tactically bland right now.

My ultimate vision is to ditch T20Is, merge them with ODIs and have a 35-40 over game. Still long enough to see 100s made and patience needed, but takes away the 'cheapness' of a 20 over match - just feels short and manufactured.

I agree totally with the points you made about the middle overs but then again, isn't that cricket? In test matches we get entire sessions and days where nothing much seems to be happening. It's that boredom that we as cricket fans have to deal with for the rush and beauty that cricket eventually provides.

I know, I know, ODIs are meant to be the type of cricket that "entertains" in the modern sense of the word but with T20s, I just don't think that the modern, limited overs, "casual" fan cares so much about the 50 over game now that T20s have been introduced.

On a personal note, I prefer the hard graft and the small nuances of the middle overs of an ODI far more than the blitzkrieg of the 20 over game...sadly fans like us are in the minority and that may spell the end of ODIs.

It's not that this format of the game can't be interesting, it can be, recent tournaments and recent series' have shown us that (WC 2011, Champions Trophy and the Pak/India series in India).

If I may put on my organisers hat for a moment I'd have every ODI series played before tests, with the series limited to only 3 ODIs...possibly 5 if it was a marquee series such as Indo-Pak or Eng-Aus. This is so that the viewer is not warn out by a tonne of test cricket and then t20s and then a bunch of ODIs added in as a financial after thought. I know the ICC probably won't ever do this and neither will the relevant boards, t20s have become the main limited overs attraction and ODIs are tacked on to make a bit of extra cash for everyone involved and are thrown in at the tale end of a series, where fan fatigue has settled in.

For example, I'm a huge cricket fan but even I have barely followed the recent eng/Aus ODIs, it's just too much cricket after a international tournament, months of Ashes, a couple t20s...I just couldn't bare watching even more cricket in the dying days of summer.

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Too much is made of the supposed demise of 50 over matches, sure there are lulls in the action but cricket has never been about constant action.

Cricket will never draw big audiences, most people dismiss it as boring without ever giving it a chance. Any so called "fans" that choose T20 over other formats ain't really fans of cricket, they should take up baseball or football

Notice despite warnings "the end of cricket is nigh", that England vs Australia is still five Tests, five ODIs and only a couple of T20s for money mainly I would guess. They haven't cancelled the next World Cup, it's scaremongering and just another person voicing their view on something like they're an authority.

Nicholas was an ordinary cricketer, and smug pundit/presenter. Him, Aggers, Yawn and a fair few others just like the sound of their own voices and to sound like they know what they're talking about.

One of the worst things you can do with a game is keep changing it. You won't get hundreds of runs after the powerplay and before the climax of the innings, sides conserve their wickets so they can score quickly with wickets in hand. They brought in the batting powerplay, that just scares the batting side as it normally does more damage than good. Shows these "innovations" are just disruptive and not very welcome.

If they want high octane action, make the fields with only 2-3 outside the ring for all 50 overs, make the pitches swing all over the shop and give the bowlers several new balls. With the batsmen facing a choice, fight to survive or try and score, you'll get great matches. The problem is most thinking is runs = entertainment so we get scores about 50+ runs higher than back in the 90s and not a lot of entertainment.

If the ball is swinging you get batsmen playing and missing, edges, and tails scoring cameo innings and forcing panic in the bowlers. Even scores of 180-220 on a pitch helping the bowlers is defendable, you get a game not one side batting the other side out of it, or one side capitulating and the other coasting home.

And surprisingly more T20s are one sided than the format might suggest, I've never found them particularly entertaining. Some people think five card cribbage is more skilful than six, it isn't because one lucky hand of 12 can decide the short game, and indeed the box is mainly luck and that is too influential - how is that skillful?!?!?!? The normal scores are so low that luck plays a big factor, flawed logic suggests the fewer cards make it more skillful.

Then again the main advocate was a scrawny f'er so it isn't surprising he'd claim that. I ain't lucky at all, funny how I will win most games of six card crib what with being a better player

hehe a bit angry but a good post none the less

 

[MUFC1987]

It's annoying when people quote massive posts from people on my ignore list.

Seriously though, I like ODI cricket. I think the issue is the pitches and some of the regs. On good pitches, any team fancies their chances of scoring more than the other side. A side batting first can score 300-320 and the team batting second would fancy their chances of chasing it down, hence they let the game drift in those middle overs. This also isn't helped by the two new balls and the old ball changes. Instead of an old ball that can be reverse swung late in the innings, we get two new ones, which might occasionally swing a bit early on in the innings. However, mostly they don't do much at the start and are just cannon fodder come the end.

What I really like though, are ODIs on tricky pitches. Whether that be seaming ones, or spinning ones, it doesn't matter. They tend to produce lower scores, meaning that batsmen are struggling to get the ball away in the middle overs and bowlers are trying to take wickets, i.e. being more aggressive. Much better to watch in the middle overs then. However, most places seem to be fans of 350 plays 340, which isn't always that exciting. Although, I will admit to loving that South Africa - Australia games years back, so perhaps I just don't know what I want.

 

[Bluey Zarsoff]

My ultimate vision is to ditch T20Is, merge them with ODIs and have a 35-40 over game.

That is exactly how I see things.

20 overs is too short and 50 overs is too long. The answer is a no-brainer.

 

[cricket_icon]

It's annoying when people quote massive posts from people on my ignore list.

Seriously though, I like ODI cricket. I think the issue is the pitches and some of the regs. On good pitches, any team fancies their chances of scoring more than the other side. A side batting first can score 300-320 and the team batting second would fancy their chances of chasing it down, hence they let the game drift in those middle overs. This also isn't helped by the two new balls and the old ball changes. Instead of an old ball that can be reverse swung late in the innings, we get two new ones, which might occasionally swing a bit early on in the innings. However, mostly they don't do much at the start and are just cannon fodder come the end.

What I really like though, are ODIs on tricky pitches. Whether that be seaming ones, or spinning ones, it doesn't matter. They tend to produce lower scores, meaning that batsmen are struggling to get the ball away in the middle overs and bowlers are trying to take wickets, i.e. being more aggressive. Much better to watch in the middle overs then. However, most places seem to be fans of 350 plays 340, which isn't always that exciting. Although, I will admit to loving that South Africa - Australia games years back, so perhaps I just don't know what I want.

That was a great game! but it's rare that a game of a score of 300+ initially in competitive. From memory anyway, I have a feeling someone will pull out stats and prove me wrong lol but all the best ODI games are the ones where the team batting first has had to deal with quality bowling and then the team batting second has struggled to get the score.

Pitches have a BIG role to play in this but sadly, more and more pitches are being put together as batting paradises, as flat as a size 0 models chest. Better pitches and better bowlers would be the key. I think there are probably only 2 or 3 truly world class ODI attacks, Pakistan, SA and Eng/Aus on a good day.

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PS, on the topic of gaving a 35-40 over game, I'm not a huge fan tbh. I like the ebb and flow of the 50 over game and the blitz in the final 10-15. We'd lose a large chunk of what makes ODI cricket so intriguing by reducing it to 40 overs, yes I know there would be less middle over of tedium but that tedium is often down to good bowling, trying to rebuild innings etc, that wouldn't always be the case with bowler's bowling less than 10 overs a game, we wouldn't see the likes of Ajmal, Irfan, Morkel, Malinga, Johnson and so on be as effective.

Keep 50 overs cricket the same but market it more aggressively and stop tacking it onto the rear end of a season.

 

[Bluey Zarsoff]

50 overs cricket's worst enemy is 20 overs cricket.