ODI is 'dying a slow death' as Cricket Australia move exposes damning Aussie cricket reality

OPINION

Australia's men's One Day International (ODI) squad was announced this week but there has been barely a murmur about the squad selection or the upcoming series against Pakistan. Instead, cricket fans' attention is almost solely on Australia's upcoming Test series against India, while away from that, the short-form T20 format continues to grow and attract a broader audience.

The men's summer of cricket gets underway with an ODI series against Pakistan in November, however, Aussies are either not aware or simply don't care that it is just over two weeks away. All the talk in the media and amongst friends at pubs and barbeques this past week has been about Cameron Green's injury, who should open for Australia and have you seen how good young New South Welshman Sam Konstas is?

And it has nothing to do with the team selected, which features a host of household cricket names and includes livewire batsman Jake Fraser-McGurk. While the majority of Aussies have lost interest in the one-day format over the years, it now seems even Cricket Australia has put 50-over cricket at the bottom of the pile, with Test cricket, Big Bash and T20's taking priority.

The idea that the T20 format was killing Test cricket was a familiar theme when the 20-over game went mainstream and while it wasn't necessarily untrue, many didn't realise the format that would suffer the most was ODI's. The fact that 50-over cricket is dying a slow and painful death isn't new by any means but Cricket Australia's move to put the opening game of the men's international cricket calendar on a Monday, with no free-to-air coverage tells you everything you need to know about the future of the format.

Ahead of Australia's summer of cricket, Cricket Australia launched a 'You Need To See It' campaign featuring the rousing Hunters & Collectors hit ‘Do you see what I see?’ in an attempt to drum up anticipation for the upcoming summer of cricket.

The campaign is meant to celebrate the excitement, emotion and drama that cricket fans and players throughout the Australian summer experience. But ironically the fact is most cricket fans won't see Australia's cricket campaign get underway, as the ODI series against Pakistan will be exclusively shown on Prime Video.

Australian ODI attendance numbers continue to dwindle

So it should see more fans go to games then, right? Unlikely. Attendance numbers at ODI matches in Australia have been horrifically low in the past few years and the trend is likely to continue this summer.

Despite Australia winning the ODI World Cup, only 16,342 fans came to watch the World Cup-winning side's first match back in Australia. In fact, when the game got underway at 2.30pm there were less than 6,000 fans inside the MCG.

While in November, 2022, only 10,406 rocked up to the final ODI between Australia and England which saw the home side clinch a clean sweep. It continued the trend of the series, with 16,993 fans attending game two at the SCG, which was played on a Saturday evening, and just 15,428 to the opening ODI in Adelaide.

And Cricket Australia's move to once again bury the ODI's at the start of the summer as a way to almost drum up attention for the Test series shows even they have given up a bit. And the decision to put the opening game on November 4, which happens to be a Monday is even more puzzling.

On November 2 and 3, there is a distinct lack of sport for Aussie fans to indulge in. So it would appear to be the perfect weekend to capture the eyeballs of Aussie sports fans. But instead, Cricket Australia decided to play the opening ODI on Monday, a school day. While Cricket Australia are unlikely able to turn ODI's into a fan-favourite format again, surely putting it on a weekday isn't going to help the cause?

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T20 cricket continues to kill the ODI format

The T20 World Cup is also on course to overtake the 50-over World Cup as the "most important" ICC event to players around the world for the first time ever, according to new survey data seen by ESPNcricinfo. The newly-rebranded World Cricketers Association (WCA), formerly FICA, conducts regular surveys which are circulated to several hundred players around the world and its most recent study showed that in the past five years, there has been a sharp increase in the proportion of cricketers who consider the T20 World Cup to be the most important ICC event.

In 2019, 85 per cent of respondents ranked the 50-over World Cup as the most important ICC event, compared to 15 per cent who chose the T20 World Cup. But as of 2024, only 50 per cent chose the 50-over World Cup, compared to 35 per cent who said the T20 World Cup and a further 15 per cent who picked the World Test Championship.

For players under 26, the change is even more drastic. In 2019, 86 per cent picked the 50-over World Cup compared to 14 per cent who chose the T20 World Cup. In 2024, less than half said the 50-over World Cup was the sports pinnacle tournament.

Usman Khawaja believes ODI is becoming obsolete

The latest stars back up what Australian Test opener Usman Khawaja has previously said about one-day cricket "dying a slow death". Khawaja says Test and T20 fixtures have slowly started to overshadow one-day cricket and it is a trend that will only continue.

"Fifty-over cricket is probably the toughest on the body … you ask any cricketer, 50-over cricket is very tough work," Khawaja said in 2022. "You’ve got Test cricket, which is the pinnacle, you’ve got T20 cricket which obviously has leagues around the world, great entertainment, everyone loves it, and then there’s one-day cricket, and I feel like that’s probably the third ranked out of all of them.

"I think personally one-day cricket is dying a slow death, but at the end of the day, there’s still one-day cricket to be had. There’s still the World Cup, which I think is really fun and enjoyable to watch. Other than that, I’m probably not into one-day cricket much either."