Peter Lanky wrote:Apart from the obvious overkill these days, perhaps the ECB could look back at one day cricket as it was in the early 1970s, both international and domestic, and work out why it was so popular then. We had a good product and people loved it. It is only in recent years that T20 has offered an alternative, but one day cricket was in decline well before then, so nobody can say that T20 has taken away it's audience. I think people generally know my views on this and generally disagree with them, but it is possible that if somebody put some effort into sensible research, then it may turn out that the old ways were the best.
I agree I dislike all ODI cricket for all the power plays, fielding restrictions and other stupid features (using two balls) that have been introduced over the years.
Over the years the ODI game has swung to a Batsmens game where by 20 years ago scores of 300+ were rare occurances now they're almost common place, as batsmen are free to swing at the ball with very little risk.
THe only reason the second ball was introduced is because batsmen complained they couldnt see the ball when it started to reverse at 30 odd overs and cause them problems (ie Lowering thier batting averages).
I also dont see why we couldnt host a triangular series in the summer between the two visting teams, with 3 qualification games/team and a Final as it would make game more interesting, we're lucky as we have a multi-cultural society, so most games would be reasonably well attended whether England were playing or not.
'To Beer or Not to Beer, that is the Question, whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The hangover and pains of outrageous lager'
