The future of cricket’s 50-overs format does not look very bright

It has been more than five weeks since India lost to Australia in the 50-overs cricket World Cup final, but the broader question of what the future of this form of cricket is, if at all there is one, still remains.

Up until January 1971, when the first one-day international (ODI) match was played, international cricket was a game played over five days, usually with a rest day in between. It was a relaxed game for those relaxed times.

The 50- overs game became very popular as it was much faster than Test cricket, and over a period time, batters started to hit more fours and sixes, something which the audience enjoyed. Also, there was always an end result—a team won—unlike Test cricket, where a match could be drawn even after five days. But now the existence of 50-overs cricket is being challenged by twenty-twenty (T20) cricket. In fact, the reasons that made the 50-overs format popular are now behind T20’s popularity. It’s a faster game, with batters hitting more fours and sixes. A 50-overs game usually lasts for around eight hours, whereas a T-20 game typically ends in less than four hours.

It’s safe to say that the T20 game has made 50-overs cricket seem boring. Can the latter compete? As Thomas Sowell writes in Basic Economics: “The most important thing about competition is that it is a condition in the marketplace... Competition as a condition is precisely what eliminates many competitors.” So, competition can lead to less of it, which is precisely what seems to be happening here.

Also, competition doesn’t just come from T20 cricket. There is another dynamic at work, with the smartphone at the heart of it. Before these handsets became popular, we still had divisions in our minds. A newspaper was something to be read early in the morning to catch up on the previous day’s happenings. A magazine was read weekly or fortnightly for long detailed reads. One relaxed in front of the TV every evening by watching serials or films or film songs and even the day’s news. Or one could put on a radio or tape-recorder or CD-player and listen to music.

These divisions have broken down now. Everything and more can be done just on hand-held devices. We have moved on from an era when different gizmos fulfilled our attention needs to just one device—the smartphone. This has made so many other devices irrelevant, including watches, cameras, street maps, calculators, maps, CD players and so on. It has also changed the way we consume content with short reels and videos becoming very popular. So, attention spans have come down. This explains why 50-overs cricket feels very boring, given that there are large periods of the game when nothing really happens.

Also, given that so much more content is available, if cricket is boring, one can always move on and scroll through Insta reels. Or one can listen to music on Spotify. Or watch Netflix. Or one can log on to Amazon and shop. The competition that 50-overs cricket faces doesn’t just end with T20 cricket.

So, what can be done? The former Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar has been talking about introducing two innings into the 50-overs game, like with Test cricket. Nonetheless, as the former Pakistani cricketer Wasim Akram said recently, the change-overs between innings when there is no action on the cricket field—and there will be three of them in this case—will make the game even more boring.

Further, as is largely the case with football, suggestions have been made that only the 50-overs World Cup should happen and countries should not play bilateral games with each other. But if countries don’t play bilateral games, how do cricketers continue to be in practice?

One workable suggestion is to make the game more balanced by allowing fast bowlers to bowl more bouncers. Also, a couple of bowlers can be allowed to bowl more than the currently mandated maximum of 10 overs per inning.

All these and more solutions can be tried, but the fact of the matter is that at eight hours, the game is simply too long for the times that we live in. Another suggestion has been to reduce the game to 40 overs per side. That would limit the game time to around 6.5 hours. But even at that length, it will be longer than any other game, barring Test cricket.

So, the future of 50-overs cricket doesn’t look good. In fact, cricket boards all around the world are already getting their teams to play more T20 matches. The good thing is that one form of the game seems to be cannibalizing another form. Of course, on the flip side, cricket lovers won’t get to see many players who are at their best in 50-overs cricket. Like, we will see fewer of the masterly run chases of the kind Virat Kohli specializes in.

Finally, T20 cricket is like thrillers written by Robert Ludlum, where the action is fast paced and constantly happening to keep the reader engaged; 50- overs cricket, on the other hand, is like a slow-burn Scandinavian police procedural, where there isn’t much action through most of the book until things pick up and peak. To enjoy such a book, one needs patience and persistence, something that has gone down in this day and age of consuming what is now known as ‘content’.

Vivek Kaul is the author of ‘Bad Money’.