Ravichandran Ashwin urged the International Cricket Council (ICC) to reconsider their scheduling, saying that nowadays every year has a marquee tournament like a World Cup and a Champions Trophy which are there mainly because of revenue generation. 2025 had the Champions Trophy tournament for the men and the ODI World Cup for the women while 2026 will host both the Men’s as well as the Women’s T20 World Cups.
“The ODI format has become redundant and to top it, ICC needs to see how they are conducting these World Cups. Every year, there is an ICC tournament for revenue generation pattern, but look at how FIFA is doing it. There are leagues (EPL, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga) happening and they do their World Cup once in every four years. The World Cup has value as it’s a marquee tournament. (But in cricket) too many bilaterals, too many formats, too many World Cups, so it’s little bit of an overkill,” Ashwin said on his YouTube channel ‘Ash Ki Baat’.
While many like the legendary Sachin Tendulkar have suggested a split-innings format for one-dayers to revive them, Ashwin said that having just one 50-over event, the World Cup every four years, could also be a possible option.
“If you really want to make ODI cricket relevant, then just play these (T20s) leagues and play ODI World Cup once in four years. So when people turn up for events, there will be sense of expectation. (Otherwise) I feel it (ODI cricket) is going towards slow death,” he said.
Ashwin had also opined that the ODIs might struggle once established stars like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma retire from it, adding that the format was once amazing that produced a player like Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who knew how to control the innings as required by the game then.
“…Dhoni (would) take singles for 10-15 overs before he went berserk at the end. You don’t have players like that (Dhoni) anymore. There isn’t any requirement to play like that, as you are playing with two new balls and five fielders inside circle,” said Ashwin, asserting that modern ODIs are either a ‘BashaThon’ or a tale of collapse if the wicket happens to be slightly difficult,” he said.
