Cricket News

Ajay Jadeja gives his opinion on the relevance of ODI cricket

Former Indian cricketer Ajay Jadeja said that the broadcasters and media rights have a big influence on the popularity of the format while discussing the future of the ODI format. Notably, Ben Stokes retired from ODI cricket at the age of 31 recently, opting to concentrate on Test and T20I formats, which have now raised a lot of concerns over the 50-over format.

Ajay Jadeja’s comments come on the back of Ben Stokes’ sudden retirement from ODI’s to manage his workload better. Wasim Akram and Ravichandran Ashwin have also said that ODI Cricket is on the decline and that it is heavily loaded in favour of the batters.

As the matter of fact, Test cricket has survived and looks promising in the current era. However, the arrival of the T20 format has put the ODIs on the back burner, and the cricketers have found it tough to manage the workload in three formats. Recently, former cricketers Ravi Shastri and Shahid Afridi suggested a reduction from 50 overs to 40 in ODIs to ensure that the format remains relevant and exciting.

“There was a time when ODI cricket had arrived and then lesser Test matches were being played because that is again, more productive for the players, broadcasters and for the association. Broadcasters play a key role. If you notice, whichever gets the higher media rights that gets more popularity. ODI was expensive at one point of time. Then T20 came,” Jadeja said.

Jadeja noted the previous era when the number of Tests was quite a few to the introduction of ODI cricket and explained that the broadcasters found the 50-over format quite lucrative. He went on to highlight the importance of media rights having a direct impact on the popularity of the format.

He reckoned that the media rights have increased for T20Is once they were introduced and added that Test cricket will not be impacted due to this. He concluded with a cheeky comment stating, that who would spare seven hours for a match when T20 gets over in three.

“Now their rights have increased and hence ODIs are being played less. But Test will forever remain. In fact, India are playing more Test match now than they played 20-30 years back. But ODI…7 ghante kiske paas he agar saare teen ghante me kaam chalta he?”.