Regardless of the direction in which the final in Dubai goes today, the ICC Champions Trophy has given the beleaguered 50-over format a leg up. Seemingly trapped in an identity crisis, neither here nor there, there were fears that it could totally disappear in the not-too-distant future. Test cricket remains the paramount form of the game – at least as far as lip service goes – and the 20-over format the favourite of administrators, most of the fans and a large number of the players as well. It has almost cannibalized the longer version of the limited-overs game, making it almost an afterthought outside of major global tournaments.

There have been complaints that the 50-over duration is too long, the middle overs are boring, with both teams happy to engage in a holding pattern. Similar concerns have been expressed in sports like tennis, badminton and chess, claiming that the diminishing attention spans of the audience need to be catered to.

It’s a result of putting cricket, and sport in general, under the broad umbrella called ‘entertainment.’ It pits them against all other forms of pastimes when the viewer – who may or may not be a sports enthusiast – has a channel-changer in her hand. One needs to grab attention and the only way to do that is helter-skelter action at all times, it’s argued.       

But like many other pursuits, if one invests some time in a 50-over game and follows its ebbs and flows, it can be a rewarding experience. The format has much more nuance than a T20 game can ever provide, as the various phases call for various strategies and approaches. A lot can go wrong over 50 overs, and conversely, there’s always a chance of a comeback after a poor start, both with bat and ball. In contrast, a less-than-ideal beginning in a T20 match, can often make it too hard to recover.

One cannot help admire the skill and efficiency with which Virat Kohli goes about constructing an ODI innings. His approach is always dictated by the match situation and what the team requires at that moment. While chasing a total, it almost seems that he has it all worked out, breaking a match into smaller segments and setting targets for each. The ability to keep the scoreboard moving without taking unviable risk – even when the asking rate is above eight runs an over – is an enviable talent, as is the habit of finishing the task himself rather than leave it for the next man.

In for the long haul

This cannot be achieved if the player doesn’t have the skill to build an innings and play in various gears. The England team, in contrast, plays one-dimensional cricket across formats. Their batsmen operate in fifth gear throughout. This can work on good days but, on average, is a much too risky approach. They may get off to a flying start, but can easily lose wickets in a heap and, as a result, someone like Joe Root will be left to repair the damage with hardly any support from the other end. ‘Baz-Ball’ has often only provided a much more entertaining way of losing.

After another disastrous global white-ball tournament for them, where they lost all three matches, soon after losing seven of eight white-ball fixtures on the India tour, a change of approach is in order. Rob Key, the managing director of the England team, has belatedly recognised that the 50-over format is closer to the rhythms of a Test match rather than being an elongated version of T20 cricket, which he termed as the ‘outlier’ among the three formats.

As far as bowling goes, it needs more skill to get wickets in ODIs than in T20s, where batsmen are obliged to take risks. In a longer game, the batting team can even decide to play out one bowler without taking any risk, and take its chances against the others. Forty overs in an innings is still a long time.

Getting wickets in the middle overs is now the name of the game. Ironically, this is the phase which those having shorter attention spans would like to do away with. There have been suggestions to turn ODIs into 40-overs-a-side matches, making it an even more compressed affair.

That would be a travesty. The limited-overs formats are anyway tilted towards batsmen, with a bowler only allowed to send down a pre-decided number of bowlers while having artificial field restrictions imposed upon them during various stages. Already, a separate ball is used from each end, which means it doesn’t get rough enough to either help spinners too much or facilitate reverse-swing.

A fairer contest

The longer the duration of a contest, the more chance there is of the cream rising to the top. A few big hits, not necessarily off the middle of the bat, can decide a T20 game, but there is less chance of that happening in an ODI. That’s because the groundwork needs to be done throughout an innings for the late-order fireworks to make a difference. Four successive sixes in the last over of a T20 World Cup final ensured that everyone would ‘remember the name’ of Carlos Brathwaite, but that has been the last memorable day for West Indies cricket, as they have even failed to qualify for the two most-recent 50-over global tournaments.

The most successful white-ball teams in recent times – India and Australia – have been built around players who can hold their own in longer forms of the game. Apart from Kohli, the likes of Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, KL Rahul, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav and Mohammed Shami have been there and done that.

Steve Smith is an all-time great in Test cricket, but his ODI record is nothing to be scoffed at either. Australia were hamstrung in the Champions Trophy by the absence of their once-in-a-lifetime pace trio – Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood. Their World Cup-winning squad had the likes of David Warner, Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne, known for their stellar record in Test cricket as well.

In the present scenario, the 50-over game only captures the imagination when a global event comes calling. But that is the result of the myopia of administrators who cannot look beyond the balance sheet. There was a time when there was a complaint of too many ODIs without context. The records of some of the newer entrants in international cricket would suggest that they now play too little of it.