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Ben Stokes' ODI retirement at the age of 31 has given rise to a discussion over One-day cricket's future. While Test cricket has managed to stay relevant despite being the longest format of the game, ODI cricket has suddenly become the ignored middle child. After legendary Pakistan bowling all-rounder Wasim Akram called for scrapping ODIs, Australian opener Usman Khawaja has joined the bandwagon.
"I think personally one-day cricket is dying a slow death," Khawaja, who has not played an ODI since 2019 World Cup told the reporters in Brisbane on July 22.
"There's still the World Cup, which I think is really fun and it's enjoyable to watch, but other than that, even myself personally, I'm probably not into one-day cricket as much either."
Khawaja feels there is only one reason 50-over format has some relevance and that is the ODI World Cup.
"There's still the World Cup, which I think is really fun and it's enjoyable to watch, but other than that, even myself personally, I'm probably not into one-day cricket as much either," the southpaw said.
Khawaja further explained how T20 World Cup has made the 50-over format redundant.
"Right now it feels like it's not really that important because of the T20 World Cup," Khawaja said.
"Something has to give, because you can't have all three formats all together playing all the games; you're going to have to decide and choose."
Khawaja also reacted to Stokes' retirement and his decision to leave one format. While he feels that it is not impossible to keep playing three formats, he says it is tough to keep
up with given the amount of cricket.
"Not impossible, very tough. So much travelling. If you're playing all three forms of the game, you're not at home at all really," he said.
“There's a lot of cricket going on. Yes, you get to pick and choose, I guess, in certain respects what you want to play but look it can be very tough at the moment.”
