Ravi Shastri backs Shahid Afridi, suggests radical move to make ODIs entertaining

There seems to be a lot of debates and deliberations over the future and sustainability of ODI cricket. In the current scheme of things, a number of players and pundits have spoken about the format and they believe that the format needs tweaking if it has to stay relevant. While Test cricket remains the pinnacle, T20s have become supremely popular over the last decade. Former India head coach Ravi Shastri has spoken about the issue and as per him, the number of overs in ODIs should be reduced to 40 from the current count of 50 overs. England all-rounder Ben Stokes retired from the 50-over format citing the workload and the crammed schedule and this has forced people to look into the future of the format. Former Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi has also said that the format could be shortened to make it more engaging as well as entertaining. “One-day cricket has become quite boring now. I would suggest to cut ODI cricket from 50 overs to 40 overs in order to make it entertaining,” Afridi told Samaa TV. Ravi Shastri too has echoed the same view. He believes the organisers and the cricket committee needs to be progressive and forward thinking. He said that when ODI was started, there was 60 overs per innings, but it was then clipped to 50 overs and something similar needed to be done as people are not very engaged during the 20 to 40 overs phase. “When we won the World Cup in 1983, it was of 60 overs. After that, people thought that 60 overs were a bit too long. People found that span of overs between 20 to 40 hard to digest. So they reduced it from 60 to 50. So years have gone by now since that decision so why not reduce it from 50 to 40 now. Because you got to be forward-thinking and evolve. It stayed for 50 for too long,” Shastri told FanCode during the second India vs West Indies ODI.