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The Rise of One-Day Cricket

In 2016 no side symbolized the shift in the balance of modern Cricket from the five-day Test match to the Twenty20 (T20; 20 overs-a-side) game more than the West Indies.

Through the 1980s and ’90s, the West Indies had dominated Test cricket. By October 2016, however, they ranked eighth in the league of 10 Test-playing countries (above only Bangladesh and Zimbabwe) and ninth out of 12 countries in the more-traditional one-day international (ODI) 50-over-a-side format.

Meanwhile, they had won the premier international T20 tournament, the International Cricket Council (ICC) Twenty20 World Cup, in both 2012 and 2016.

The 2016 tournament ended in a particularly explosive final match as West Indies batsman Carlos Brathwaite hit four consecutive balls bowled by England’s Ben Stokes for six in the last over to score the required 24 runs for the victory.

Limited-over one-day cricket was introduced in India in the early 1950s. The first one-day international match was played in 1971 between England and Australia, and the first ICC Cricket World Cup was staged in 1975.

An even-shorter form of the game known as Cricket Max was developed in New Zealand in the 1990s by former Test batsman Martin Crowe, but the official rules for T20 were established in 2001 by the England and Wales Cricket Board.

The first tournament was conducted by the English county teams in 2003, and two years later Australia and New Zealand faced off in a lighthearted T20 match in Auckland, N.Z., the first official international T20 game.

The inaugural T20 World Cup was held in 2007, but it was the introduction of the city-based Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2008 that changed the profile of T20 cricket.

For cricket purists, who cherished the slower rhythms and the mental challenge of the long form of the game, the decline of a once-great Test-playing side was a source of sadness and concern.

Clive Lloyd, a former captain (1974–85) of the West Indies, asserted that T20 cricket was “killing” Test cricket in the Caribbean.

For many of the younger fans, brought up on a diet of T20 cricket at both the club and the international level, the triumph of the West Indies was a cause for celebration.

Supporters of the limited-overs game reasoned: Who would want to spend five days playing or watching Test cricket when all of the excitement could be condensed into a mere three hours of raucous entertainment, complete with colourful uniforms, loud music, dancing girls, and sixes galore?

Spectators packed the stands to watch franchise teams, such as the Mumbai Indians, Delhi Daredevils, and Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL or the Brisbane Heat, Perth Scorchers, and Sydney Sixers in Australia’s Big Bash League (BBL).

Meanwhile, Test cricket struggled to attract attention, even in some of its traditional heartlands: India, South Africa, and New Zealand.

Only in England and Australia, the two original Test-playing countries, did the spirit of Test cricket endure.

Matches between the two countries (played for a 15-cm [6-in] trophy known as the Ashes) remained well attended and ferociously hard fought, with the 2015 Ashes series, won by host England three games to two, drawing some 560,000 spectators.

Even in those two countries, however, there was a subtle change of emphasis. The new breed of young cricketers was learning the techniques of the T20 game rather than the more-traditional ways of Test cricket.

Instead of patience and orthodoxy, T20 cricket demanded innovation, quick thinking, and athleticism from the bowlers, the batsmen, and the fielders. With only 20 overs to compile a score, there was no time for batsmen to settle or to build an innings.

Everything, from the big bats to the small boundaries, was geared toward encouraging the batsman to hit sixes, preferably as high and as far into the crowd as possible (similar to a home run in baseball).

There were rewards for the longest hit and the most prolific six-hitter in a tournament. Many observers feared that as T20 captured the attention of TV broadcasters and the passion of young supporters, Test cricket would wither and die.

India’s M.S. Dhoni, the world’s wealthiest cricketer prior to his abrupt retirement in 2016, was credited with having set the trend.

Although he captained India in all forms of the game, his reputation (and his fortune) was built on his explosive batting in one-day cricket, particularly T20.

Under his captaincy India declined as a force in Test cricket but won both the one-day (2011) and the T20 (2007) World Cups.

The Big Bash League (BBL, also known as the KFC Big Bash League for sponsorship reasons) is an Australian professional Twenty20 cricket league, which was established in 2011 by Cricket Australia.