In all 3 instances, after literally mauling their opponents in a Test series; England, Australia and South Africa promptly lost or barely drew the ODI series' that followed
England soundly beat India at it own game in a 4 Test Series 2-1 in India and mercifully the Australia v Sri Lanka and the South Africa v New Zealand series' were only 2-3 Tests long.
The hosts in both the series won all the test matches.
In all the 3 series' the strongest Test teams were happy to show their muscle in the Tests but under various guises fielded watered down versions of their Test squads during the ODI leg.
I have been surprised at how long the ODI has survived after the advent of the T20 format and the franchise model. But may be... just may be, England, Australia and South Africa are inadvertently making some sort of a statement that the ODI has become irrelevant.
Surely the ODI isn't as profitable as the T20. One can presume this is true because because if the statement were false, surely the IPL would have had at least a few 50 over games in a season.
So why are we still playing the format when clearly the best international teams don't think much of it. Even when India were doing well in Tests rarely would they field their strongest ODI teams for the ODI leg of any series.
May be when the current TV contracts run out, the next ones will not have any ODI requirements in the schedule. May be its the existing TV contracts that is keeping the ODI alive.
1 comment:
ODI is the one format in which India and MS Dhoni,in particular, are doing well. Unlikely that BCCI or MS Dhoni - two entities who have veto power in World Cricket - will agree to abandon it.
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