It was February 24th 2010, the headline of an article on Cricinfo.com by Kanishkaa Balachandran read:
Flawless Tendulkar 200 gives India series
It took nearly 40 years of waiting and it was well worth it. Sachin Tendulkar chose one of the better bowling attacks doing the rounds, to eclipse the record for the highest score, before bringing up the first double-hundred in ODI history. The spectators at ….....
On the one hand I was a proud Sachin Tendulkar fan, and on the other I was at some unease over the monstrosity of this innings by Sachin, and the increasing occurrence of high total one day cricket matches. For the past 3 days I have been chewing on this thought. If words could fly out of the screen, the boldened text above, was jumping out at me and shaking me wildly. To put it plainly, I feel ODI cricket has come full circle. How and Why? Read on....
The Journey of One Day Internationals (ODIs)
The first One Day International was played out in the year 1971, which means it has been almost 40 years since the shorter version of cricket was introduced. Since then, the shorter format of the game, accompanied by men-in-colored-jerseys-using-white-ball-playing-under-lights just picked up steam and came to dominate cricket and also changed the default definition of what cricket as a game meant to the masses. Almost every cricket fan is a huge fan of ODIs. Not me, because, as a cricket fan, I WAS a huge fan of ODIs. Not anymore.
Considering how ODI cricket was being played before and how it is being played now, and taking into account some statistical data I like to divide this 40 year period into 3 distinct eras.
The Pre Sri Lanka era (January 1971- February 1996)
The Pre Sri Lanka era comprised of teams that had, for the most part, the same players in both Tests and ODIs. With Test cricket being the original format of the game, one could always see the Test match mentality spilling over into ODI cricket and not vice versa. It was an era where a score of 250+ was a dream target of the teams batting first. It was a total that meant victory for the team batting first and a lost cause for the teams chasing it.
This era encompasses the time period from the birth of 60-overs-ODI cricket, i.e. 1971, till the 1996 World Cup; which is exactly 25 years. This World Cup which marked the Silver Jubilee of ODI cricket gave us a new world champion in Sri Lanka. This World Cup was one of the highest point ever in international one day cricket.
Over the last 40 years, International Cricket Council managed to bring in only a handful of new nations on the main stage in ODI cricket and all of them have failed miserably. As far as I know, until the 1996 World Cup, Sri Lanka was a very mediocre team in the ranks of Zimbabwe. This World Cup was a single, isolated moment in the history of ODI cricket where a mediocre team broke all the shackles and metamorphosed into a competitive, respected team. (This left Zimbabwe alone for which ICC felt very sorry for and brought them company in the form of Bangladesh).
Barring this single event, not a single low-key team has ever moved up in the pecking order in this entire 40 year span. (Reversely, we have seen teams like Zimbabwe and West Indies deteriorate due to multitude of reasons, which is not the focus of this discussion).
We were entering a new era
The Post Sri Lanka era (Feb 1996 – Feb 2005)
As mentioned previously, Sri Lanka stormed to championship in the 1996 World Cup. What made them different and why was the rest of the world caught unawares?
Sri Lanka introduced to us a new match winning strategy. They successfully implemented the strategy to exploit the fielding restrictions in the first 15 overs. With this strategy working like magic for them, Sri Lanka not only posted totals in excess of 250, but also chased such targets – and I must add without a lot of drama. Their butchering of Kenya to post a total of 398, stood as the highest ODI team total for some time to come.
Since then we have seen a certain shift in the mentality of the teams. Posting totals of 250+ was no longer safe. The bar was raised. The new dream target was shifted to 300+.
ODI cricket had changed forever and 10 years later we had T20 cricket.
The T20 era (Feb 2005 – Feb 2010)
Cometh the T20s. T20s, the shortest version of cricket, has come to revolutionize the face of cricket. Although, it is not mainstream yet in the international arena, the mere talk of it by young and old, be it approving or disapproving, gives us an idea that this version of cricket is no joke at all. It is certainly not a passing fancy.
It would be unwise not to mention, that the seeds of this era were sown in 2003, when Twenty 20 cricket was first played in English county circles to record breaking success and popularity. After gaining enough traction and acceptance, the first international T20 was played in 2005, and since then we have seen a spike in highest team totals in ODI cricket. Having come of age in the Post Sri Lanka era and the arrival of T20 ideology, this era has given us 9 innings so far in excess of 400 runs in ODIs.
12th March 2006, 5th ODI betweenSouth Africa and Australia played at Johannesburg, is the pinnacle of this era so far and represents the extent to which, the boundaries of possibilities have been stretched in ODI cricket. This match gave us 5 world records at that time.
- Australia posted the highest team total in ODI history
- It was the first time ever a team crossed the 400 mark (by a margin of 34)
- South Africa successfully chased this record breaking total, setting another world record for highest successful run chase, which still stands today
- Since, they were chasing the highest ever ODI total, they also created the record for highest ODI team total
- This match till today, stands as the game with most runs scored by both teams combined
Will it ever end? Will the maximum runs possible in an ODI top out? I think that it wont happen right away, but the numbers show we are on that route and we are on the freeway! Following are some statistics that would highlight how the landscape of ODI cricket has transformed over four decades. My sample set was the top 100 ODI team totals ever. Here I focus more on the period/year when the records were made than on what the records were.
Contribution of these eras to highest ODI team totals:
Perspective:
- More than half of the top 100 ODI team totals have been in T20 era. A period of last 5 years has eclipsed 40 years of ODI cricket
- Pre Sri Lanka era of 25 years has a share of under 10%. Clearly indicates the influence of Test cricket.
Frequency of highest ODI team totals
Perspective:
- The frequency of highest ODI team totals has gone up considerably since Post Sri Lanka era (1996 onwards). All top 5 years with highest team totals in top 100 belong to T20 era (2005 onwards)
- T20 era indicates changed batting tactics (read successful aggressive batting, something that is a feature of T20 cricket)
- If I could do a dumb extrapolation of 2010 figures, this year could easily be the second highest year contributing to top 100 ODI team totals, sending pre Sri Lanka era into greater oblivion
ODI Cricket – The Last Lap
On February 24th 2010, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, the poster boy of ODI cricket hit a magnificent, controlled and a quick, unbeaten 200 against South Africa batting out the entire 50 overs. I couldn't have been happier for Sachin, who has arguably been the best ODI batsman in the world, to take the honor of scoring the first 200 in ODI cricket. All praise and bows go out to Sachin, who has been labeled GOD, and yet it does not seem an exaggeration.
Now for a moment, let us forget that the man who achieved this feat was Sachin and consider that it was just a regular batsman doing it. Now, let us think about this again. Does this event surprise you? Did it catch anyone following cricket off-guard? Were you at a loss of words for the concept of a batsman scoring a double ton in ODIs?
One batsman, in one innings and a maximum of 50 overs, scores 200 was a laughable matter in the Pre Sri Lanka era. In spite of injecting some really poor international teams into the pool to trudge on, it was an extremely difficult task in Post Sri Lanka era. For the past few years (in this T20 era), Sehwag has been talking about scoring a double ton in ODIs. And no-one disbelieved him. There have been speculations every now and then that a batsman might score 200. The likelihood of this happening quadrupled if any test playing nation played against hapless Namibia, Netherlands, Bangladesh and the like. But now it seems, even regular elite cricket playing nations cannot escape the fury of batsmen.
And now, we have the elusive double ton. Whatever that could be done has been done. We have crossed the 400 mark in ODIs. Not once, but 9 times, all within past 5 years. We have a team that has successfully chased one of the highest team totals, needless to say the target was above 400. And now, we have a batsman scoring a double ton. After having all the major records happening right in front of our eyes, is there anyone out there dying to see a bowler take all 10 wickets in an ODI? I guess not. It could be interesting to see if anyone breaks Sachin's record. But the point is not in seeing the record being broken, but now that a landmark has been achieved, possibly the last that mattered, anything beyond it is gravy. Then what is left to watch? Are there any more frontiers left to conquer in ODI cricket?
High scoring ODI matches are fun to watch, as long as they are an exception. Post Sri Lanka era gave us a great mix of high scoring matches. It gave us fans a reason to believe that chasing 300 runs was not an impossible task. However, after the emergence of T20s, ODI cricket is getting profoundly polarized in favor of the batsmen. I believe cricket is fun to watch only if there an even contest between batsmen and bowlers; not 11 batsmen against other 11 batsmen. It is obvious that this balance in ODI cricket is eroding, and very rapidly. There are such a huge percentage of high scoring matches in this era, that the game has started turning predictable. It is turning into a show of muscles by 22 batsmen. If ODI cricket is going to mimic T20 cricket played out over 50 overs per innings, why should someone spend his time, money and enthusiasm over an 8 hour contest instead of a 3 hour one?
High scoring ODI matches are fun to watch, as long as they are an exception. Post Sri Lanka era gave us a great mix of high scoring matches. It gave us fans a reason to believe that chasing 300 runs was not an impossible task. However, after the emergence of T20s, ODI cricket is getting profoundly polarized in favor of the batsmen. I believe cricket is fun to watch only if there an even contest between batsmen and bowlers; not 11 batsmen against other 11 batsmen. It is obvious that this balance in ODI cricket is eroding, and very rapidly. There are such a huge percentage of high scoring matches in this era, that the game has started turning predictable. It is turning into a show of muscles by 22 batsmen. If ODI cricket is going to mimic T20 cricket played out over 50 overs per innings, why should someone spend his time, money and enthusiasm over an 8 hour contest instead of a 3 hour one?
If this trend continues, it will be indeed, ODI Cricket - All Out at 40.
