One day cricket in midlife crisis as T20 steals show: SMH

Melbourne, Feb 11(ANI): One-day cricket is suffering a midlife crisis as Twenty20 format has stolen the glitz and the glamour, an article in an Australian daily has said.

The Sydney Morning Herald article written by Andrew Wu said Cricket Australia (CA) said that the format remains "incredibly popular", but if crowds and ratings are any indication fans prefer watching it on television rather than in stadium.

The first ODI of the summer was watched by 1.3 million people around the country but only 30,000 turned up at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Cricket New South Wales are also finding sales sluggish for Sydney's next match, between Australia and Sri Lanka at the Sydney Cricket Ground for which about 7300 of the 28,000 public tickets have been sold, the article said.

CA, which is co-hosting the 2015 World Cup, has expressed confidence in the drawing power of the 50-over game.

"I've always worked on the premise that when you're making decisions about things, you rely on fact and the facts are that in Australia, it's a very, very popular form of the game, and globally it's still the most popular format of the game, and has been for 20 years. It's the most watched and most closely supported format of the game globally," CA chief James Sutherland said.

Sutherland, however, rejected suggestions that ODI matches have become primarily a TV product in Australia.

"It's inevitable that there's some sort of cannibalisation across all thee formats ...It's the matter of us continuing to get that balance right but the number of people that are taking an interest in these one-day games and television ratings that we're recording gives me a pretty strong indicator that the facts are one-day cricket is here to stay," Sutherland said. (ANI)