Would You Miss 50-Over Cricket?

You can see it on the horizon, an ominous, looming mass that spells impending disaster. It moves slowly, but day-by-day it draws inexorably closer, and though you run it picks up speed relative to yours and continues to loom. You look into the mirror and you see fright on your face, and you wonder why. You stand still and let the frightening mass pass, and nothing happens. There is no apocalypse, there's no such thing as armageddon. Twenty20 has come and gone without harming you. You look around, and you see the skeletal remains of your enemy, Mr ODI, all juicy and boney, crunched upon the sandy ground nearby. You laugh maniacallly, and that is that - the mass was your friend, not your enemy, and you are placated. You are happy again. You wander across the desert and find yourself in a small village on the edge of civilisation. A man sits outside supping beer on the verandah, the telly blearing on the table-top beside him. Dragging his squinting eyes away from the television, he spots you, sees you are weary, and speaks in friendly, soft tones to you:

"You there, you like cricket?"

You nod tiredly. He invities you to watch with him. It's a Test Match. It's England vs Australia, or India vs Pakistan, or South Africa vs West Indies. You forget that anything ever happened, you don't care about the loss of one-day cricket. It was inevitable anyway.

So, after all that nonsense, the crux of the issue. Twenty20 is taking over. The death of one-day cricket is predicted by all and sundry. Why watch a tired format of the game for the sake of its compact nature when it's not nearly compact enough and rarely entertaining enough. Doesn't Twenty20 offer all of the same skills and better, in essence? Now, we have haters of Twenty20, of whom I am one, and we also have haters of ODIs, of whom I am one. Personally, I cannot shirk the feeling that ODIs (and one-day cricket as a whole) have lost their aura. Before, it was all about a day out. Now you can watch the top players do their thang over three hours. Does this make Twenty20 better? Will a collection of superstars slogging the ball all day supersede the original truncated format, eventually to drive it out of existence altogether, or can they live alongside each other?

After the damp squib of a World Cup, especially when compared to the Twenty20 version, Twenty20 has taken off. There's money, casual fans, a business conglomerate bending their will towards dominate the game through the medium of Twenty20. The media has foreseen the death of ODIs and Cricinfo has cottoned on with a massive headline of that ilk. If ODIs do eventually fall by the way-side, which to me seems an inevitability, though whether it becomes extinct entirely is anyone's guess, would you actually miss it as a format, assuming Test Cricket survives (which it surely will)? Has Twenty20 improved on the original concept or not? Do bowlers have enough of an impact on Twenty20 matches relative to Fifty50 matches? Are there any elements of Fifty50 cricket that should at least be maintained even if the format itself cannot survive?

Anyway, enough of the questions if you're not interested - just answer the pertinent one in the poll: WOULD YOU MISS 50-OVER CRICKET?

No. Not even slightly.

Yes.

Can't stand T20 internationally.

Don't think so.

I would.

Not really. The one-sided games far outnumber the classics, and Twenty20 has nearly all the good points of 50-over cricket (other than "a day at the cricket", for which you've still got the original and best long format) minus a lot of the bad points.

I always used to look forward to the old NatWest (now Friends Provident) final but strangely it seemed to produce more memorable games in the old 60-over days. Seems strange to think of them even playing 60-over cricket now (and quite often struggling to score much more than 200!)

To clarify - T20 is great for domestic cricket - T20,IPL whatever

Brings a whole new audience to the game. I just find myself getting really bored. No, not bored - you can't get bored with all the action can you? Um, maybe i just feel its all a bit 'meh'

You know whats going to happen - more often than not the batsman will take a swing and there'll be heaps of 4's and 6's.

The greatness of tests is that you don't know what to expect and that the bowlers are as much a part of the game as the batsmen. A hook off a pace bowler for 6 in a test is an event because it isn't the norm.

in T20's it would be 'wooo, meh' and the bowlers are just literally fodder.

At least in 50 over cricket you get to see the skills ands nuiances of cricket (e.g a bowler bowling and setting a batsman up over 4-5 overs, or a batsman having the skill to survive against some great bowling and then counter attack)

Am I talking bollocks here or what? Wouldn't be the first time....

If 20/20 is "meh" then 50/50 is "f*ck me this is boring and pointless".

I'll take "meh" over "f*ck me this is boring and pointless". At least the "meh" is a short "meh". "F*ck me this is boring and pointless" seems to last forever.

I'll take first class cricket as my bread and butter and then watch the odd 20/20 as an enjoyable time-filler.

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:If 20/20 is "meh" then 50/50 is "f*ck me this is boring and pointless".

but then surely tests are ultra borefests to you. Maybe you should be watching baseball with that short attention span you have

How dare you. How bloody dare you. I'm more of a purist than you'll ever be. I woudn't GAF if they got rid of all limited overs cricket forever.

IMO, nothing beats the contest that is Test Cricket. However, unless we see more Test Cricket, I'm happy to make do with anything!

I'd watch it.

I quite like ODIs. As an hors d'oeuvre to an upcoming Test series, I think they're a rather appealing part of the build up.

The story of the 2005 Ashes wouldn't be complete without the cracking one-dayers that went before.

ODIs after Test series, however, when everyone just wants to go home, are horrible.

T20 anytime leaves me frigid. And I'm usually pretty easy.

Oh, I guess my answer is yes then, (unless there was more TC)

I'd miss the World Cup or rather the bit of the World Cup that's exciting in the knock out stages.

eowyn wrote:I'd miss the World Cup or rather the bit of the World Cup that's exciting in the knock out stages.

Is that the bit before or after we abysmally fail to qualify in?