Can 50-overs cricket survive? Yes, if mayhem rules

If 50-over cricket was a human being, it would be a middle-aged man (and middle child among siblings), two years short of 50, dogged by existential questions

If 50-over cricket was a human being, it would be a middle-aged man (and middle child among siblings), two years short of 50, dogged by existential questions: who am I, and why am I here? Let’s attempt a few answers: plainly, no matter what anyone else says, no, you’re not dead yet, so stop moping. So put on your best clothes, own the stage and deliver a crackling show -- of such electricity and velocity and Kathakali-range spectacle, that millions will ask for more. It may be for about a month, but that’ll give the legs more energy, the lungs more oxygen.

In the time between the end of the 2019 ICC World Cup and the start of this one, the 50-over format has been pushed to the margins, even after taking Covid into account (AFP)

Facts first: MCC has declared through incoming president Mark Nicholas it would want ODIs to only be played at World Cups, as it is “difficult bilaterally now to justify them”. He called the power of T20 cricket “supernatural”, which the Oxford dictionary defines as something “that cannot be explained by the laws of science and that seems to involve gods or magic”. (Except there is nothing supernatural about economic laws of T20: the greater the income for a shorter duration of on-field labour, the larger the labour force seeking employment. And associated corollaries like the greater the demand the higher the price, and so on.)

In the time between the end of the 2019 ICC World Cup and the start of this one, the 50-over format has been pushed to the margins, even after taking Covid into account. If we compare the time between CWC 2019 and 2023 to the period between CWC 2015 and 2019, Australia and New Zealand have played 30-odd fewer ODIs, and England have halved their quota in recent cycle. In the 12 months before World Cup, teams have played a paltry number of ODIs: the three favourites after India – England, Australia and Pakistan have played 16, 14 and 15. At the same time, for all the hand-wringing about Covid, teams didn’t have an issue getting the T20Is in between 2019-2023 – more than 60 for Australia and England, more than 80 for New Zealand and Pakistan.

What then can be done about the middle child of cricket formats? The World Cup is what has kept – and will keep – 50-over cricket alive till at least 2031. The ICC had already announced the hosts until then. What has also not changed is that the 50-over men’s World Cup is the sport’s longest running we-are-the-world kind of event, still weighty due to its frequency. Nick to keeper, and the chance is gone for four years, which in elite sport is a very long time.

The World Test Championship is a noble idea but how can folklore be built around five days each of New Zealand vs India and Australia vs India. For those muttering revenue-profitabilty-growth, the 50-over cricket World Cup is world’s richest nation vs nation sports event in media rights value after the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup. (With so much cash going around, the ICC could do better than have only 10 teams turn up, but that’s for later.)

Regardless, let’s not take the eye of the ball because it’s the conflicted 50-over game that is under stress here, not its World Cup. And if ever there was a place where the 50-over game could be re-revitalised, it is India. The emotional investment of Indian fans in the World Cup, the energies behind their team, the interest in stars from other countries, the fact that the format will matter, be discussed, dissected and deconstructed for the next six weeks should be like high-altitude oxygen.

What the 50 overs game needs is to adequately provide what its arrogant siblings do -- drama, the unexpected, the unpredictable. The wretched unfairness of it all is that the five-day pontificater still shows off its pips even if its wallets have emptied out. And the T20 punk swaggers around, too cool for school because it believes its thrill-a-minute self will outlast the end of the universe.

But there’s a way to banish 50 overs funk and give the melancholy middle overs of the maudlin middle child an image makeover. To see the game like the great MS Dhoni saw it, as a compressed version of Test cricket. Something sophisticated, yet accessible -- the cricketing equivalent of the ghazal, if you please, with languorous poetry and rhythm has an allure between classical music and filmi pop. The booze between single malt and er, hooch (T20 fans may kindly offer alternative metaphors with drinks in hand). But the problem remains: how do we sell the middle overs, which have faced the worst PR since Galileo announced the earth was round?

So, invoking the God that loves middle children, let this World Cup provide the best opportunity to turn the middle overs into Maestro Hour for bowlers. Dhoni was looking at the 50 overs format from a batsman’s point of view: power play hitting to start with, then sudden fall of wickets, then Test-match digging in, then consolidation, and then the slog over pushback. But let Maestro Hour be for cricket’s hardest working labour force: the bowlers. When the latter half of the line-up -- twirlymen, pace-changing chameleons, reverse-swinging mind-benders - can strut their stuff.

First choke, then extract and most determinedly dispatch the Bazballing lunatics back into their huts. Mind you, while the top dogs could well turn up and do it themselves, it’s the third and fourth change that should own this Middle Earth. India and the Indian team are best placed you would think, optimistically starry-eyed, but then who knows what Afghanistan’s four spinners could do.

If bowlers go for the batting sides’ gullets, we could have Hitchcockian middle overs. Where large totals broken with bursts of demolition derby FOWs, games careering into mental finishes (last-ball thrillers, not boundary-rate count backs, please).

What the middle child needs at this World Cup is early-season unpredictability of wickets, weather and organisation -- the perfect mix to throw planning out of the window. Let mayhem rule and we’ll see how you diss 50-over cricket again.