The Joy Of Watching Cricket

So much variety and so many thrills are making the game attractive as a whole.

In 1971, the first One­Day International was played between Australia and England. It was an unscheduled game after the first four days of the Melbourne Test match were washed out without a ball being bowled. Since there was no chance of a result with just one day’s play remaining, the authorities decided to play a limited-overs international and that was how limited­overs cricket at the international level began. Of course, there were limited­overs games at the first­class level in all the countries, so it wasn’t as if the concept was new to the Australian and English players.

As it started to gain popularity, the followers of Test match cricket tried to create a fear factor about it affecting the purity of the long format of the game, adversely. As it has turned out, it has actually made the longer format more attractive as there are more runs being scored and more boundaries and sixes being hit than ever before. If anything, the 50­overs format has energised the longer format and there are more results seen in Test cricket than in the first 100 years of the game.