Legendary Pakistan bowling all-rounder Wasim Akram is not in favour of ODI cricket continuing. Akram feels that the middle child of the sport is not a crowd puller anymore. Akram made these comments in response to Ben Stokes' retirement announcement from the 50-over format owing to workload issues.
“I think so (ODIs should scrapped). In England you have full houses. In India, Pakistan especially, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, South Africa, one-day cricket you are not going to fill the stadiums,” Akram was quoted as saying on the Vaughany and Tuffers Cricket Club podcast.
“They are doing it just for the sake of doing it. After the first 10 overs, it’s just ‘OK, just go a run a ball, get a boundary, four fielders in and you get to 200, 220 in 40 overs’ and then have a go last 10 overs. Another100. It’s kind of run-of-the-mill,” added the 56-year-old.
The southpaw backed Stokes' decision to leave one format to prolong his career as he said, “Him (Stokes) deciding that he is retiring from one-day cricket is quite sad but I agree with him.”
“Even as a commentator … one-day cricket is just a drag now, especially after T20. I can imagine as a player. 50 overs, 50 overs, then you have to pre-game, post-game, the lunch game,” the second-highest wicket-taker in the ODI format said.
Akram feels that ODIs is a dying format with T20 growing at an exponential rate.
“T20 is kind of easier, four hours the game is over. The leagues all around the world, there is a lot more money – I suppose this is part and parcel of the modern cricket. T20 or
Test cricket. One-day cricket is kind of dying.
“It is quite tiring for a player to play one-day cricket. After T20, one-day cricket seems it is going for days. So players are focusing on shorter format. And longer format obviously (with) Test cricket,” he concluded.
Akram is the second-highest wicket-taker in the format. From 356 ODIs, he has 502 wickets at an average of 23.52 including six five-wicket hauls. He is also the only pacer with 500 or more wickets in ODIs.
