ODI CRICKET : A DYNAMIC ENTITY

"You know all these runs scored nowadays makes no sense. It was tough to get 200+ in an One Day International with a right balance between Bat and ball", murmured an Once Die-Hard cricket fan to his son, when he got ecstatic after watching AB de Villiers smothering the West Indian bowlers at Sydney in the World Cup. Although it didn't help in the father's favour, yet he was sure his son would understand it soon enough.

Source: Financial Express

Starting from the fielding restrictions to the club-like bats to the outrageous shots, probably ODI cricket has seen more than what Pandora saw after opening the box. As the above pic of the South African star depicts, if a cricket fan from say, 20 years ago happens to see this image, he/she might be thinking the batsman just posed after a false shot. However it'd come as a great shock after knowing that it went for a BOUNDARY!! Yes, A BLOODY BOUNDARY!!

The popularity of ODI cricket on the international scene started growing from the Inaugural ICC World Cup 1975(then Prudential Cup). The format looked so new to few legendary players like Sunil Gavaskar and Zaheer Abbas that they had no idea whatsoever in the middle. The mega event got cricket more viewers around the globe. Everybody started picking up the relatively shorter format which was easier to understand and carry out on a consistent basis.

The emerging brand of attacking batsmanship saw a growing audience all over the world. As said by Tom Freston, the ex-CEO of Viacom, "Innovation is taking two things that already exist and putting them together in a new way.", the world cricket body, now the ICC thought proactively of renewing something or the other frequently enough to not let the amount of audience die. Coloured clothing, fielding restrictions, sized outfields, television rights and many many more such things got first priority slowly yet steadily, starting from Kerry Packer's World Series, creeping to every limited overs fixture possible. Very few did know that this thing will lead to endangerment of the class of Test Cricket in years to come. 

Source: sportskeeda.com

Today is 2015, Test Cricket stands still on it's own place. ODI cricket has literally become a circus, as far as consistency is concerned. It is as they say, more of everything is harmful, it is the same which we are seeing in Limited Overs Cricket's point of view. How far will this go, nobody knows. But one thing is for sure, unless there is a balance between bat and ball, the sport will collapse like a pack of cards.