Ravi Shastri comes up with this solution to save ODI Cricket

The relevancy of ODI cricket has been shrinking day by day. At once, ODI cricket was the most watched format and used to be played a lot in a calendar year but now the number of ODI matches per year have been reduced drastically.

Recently, Ben Stokes had announced retirement from ODI cricket to focus more on Test and T20 cricket. Since then, the existence of ODI cricket has come into a question, whether the format should be continued or scrapped. Since 2019 Cricket World Cup, the cricket boards are not showing keen interest in playing the 50-over format and relying mostly on Test cricket and the shortest format. It seems that ODI cricket is all about the Cricket World Cup now as the significance of bilateral series is not the same anymore.

Former India’s coach Ravi Shastri opined about the lesser enthusiasm of ODI cricket among the cricketers and the fans. During the second ODI between India & West Indies, Shastri said that there is no harm in reducing overs from ODIs for making the game interesting. When ODI cricket began, there used to be 60-over per side. When India won 1983 World Cup, ODI cricket was of 60 overs. After that, people thought 60-over format was too long so it was reduced to 50-over.

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So, if the overs can be reduced to 50 from 60 then why cannot 50-over format be trimmed to 40-over format, added Shastri. Shastri supported the statement made by Shahid Afridi, who said during an interview that One-day format has become tedious now, and he suggests to cut overs from the format and make it to 40 over which would keep the game interesting.