That's Out! One-Day Cricket's Innings Has Come To an End

The current one-day series between England and Australia can only have one possible silver lining. It may well be the death knell for an increasingly irrelevant, unloved and unwatched version of the glorious game of cricket.

This series didn’t stand a chance. Tacked on to the end of The Ashes series, there never was going to be anything to play for. England has just won The Ashes—the biggest prize in world cricket—why the hell should it care about a second-rate trophy in a series that no one cares about.

For the Aussies, it is little more than an opportunity to thrash out some of their frustrations and allow a bit of time to thaw the iciness that awaits them when they return home. No victory here, though, will assuage the pain they feel after their recent loss—even a 7-0 whitewash will hold little joy.

As an example of just how seriously this series has been taken, the Australian captain Ricky Ponting decided to have a three game holiday at the start of the series. The Australian coach, Tim Nielsen, has too decided to have a bit of a break. Representing your country apparently isn’t important enough to put holidays on hold!

Limited overs cricket, in its 50 overs guise, has run its course. The concept, which started in English County cricket in the 1960s, came to prominence when it was prostituted by Kerry Packer in the '70s and taken to a global audience.

In those days, the Super Tests, as they were known, threatened to destroy test cricket, but the gloss eventually wore off and it morphed, in Australia at least, into a tired triangular series that waned in popularity until Cricket Australia canned it.

There was a persistent belief that results were pre-determined to ensure the best rating sides reached the finals, and the finals always went to the deciding game. It was shunned by traditional cricket lovers, but one-dayers did provide an ideal venue for people who liked to get drunk in large crowds.

But it is a product of that time and it no longer appeals to the Fisher-Price generation. It has become formulaic and, when compared to the frenetic 20-20 format, it seems to be quite slow in places. The addition of power plays and the aborted super-sub concept has done little to spice up a jaded product.

Australia’s dominance has done little to aid the popularity of the game. It has won the last three World Cups and four of the nine to be held and have generally sucked the life out of the game. Very few other nations take it seriously any longer, with the possible exception of South Africa.

Today, the hit and giggle brand of T20 has swept the world and one-day cricket is now the poor cousin. It’s time to take it out the back and put it out of its misery. The sooner the better.