ICC CEO – The era of ‘randomly scheduled’ bilateral series ‘has to come to an end

The era of “randomly scheduled” bilateral series “has to come to an end,” but the much-debated ODI format can continue to survive and thrive with its place “inextricably” linked to the World Cup, ICC CEO Sanjog Gupta has said.

“The era of randomly scheduled bilateral series has to come to an end, because countries will not be able to sustain cricket without context, culture, competition and competitiveness, which require significant investment of resources, both financial and non-financial,” Gupta, who took over as ICC CEO in July last year, told PTI.

“It’s important to stay focused on the four levers which drive attention and affiliation – context, culture, competition and competitiveness – and ODIs can continue not just to survive, but thrive.

“There is a place for the format in the product portfolio, which is inextricably linked to men’s and women’s World Cups. We need to look at what we want the format to stand for and how we want it to evolve, including the expanse of participation.”

The future of ODIs has become a debated issue for the last few years, especially with the advent of several T20 leagues around the world and Test cricket also garnering interest and context with the introduction of the World Test Championship (WTC) in 2019, in which each two-year cycle ends with a team crowned the Test champion after the final. For ODIs, the most recent landmark was the 5000th game played recently, between Scotland and Canada in Dundee last week. The next ODI World Cup will be played in October-November 2027 in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia. The ICC had recently – after its annual conference in Edinburgh – revamped the structure of the 14-team tournament to include a Super Series round before the group stages, and a new Super 7 before the semi-finals.

Since the Super Series means the 12th, 13th and the 14th qualifying teams will play in a tri-series from which only one will make it to the main round of the World Cup, the format of the tournament copped severe criticism earlier this week from two Associate boards, Cricket Scotland and KNCB, the Netherlands Cricket Board.

The 2027 World Cup will be the first ICC event of the next FTP (2027-2031) cycle, which governs bilateral international series between member boards and which is set to be finalised at the ICC’s meetings in Hong Kong later this year. The current men’s FTP runs until April 2027 and the next phase will also bring with it a new cycle of media rights.

Former South Africa captain Graeme Smith had also expressed concerns around bilateral cricket last year, saying it lacked “context” and “consistency” when it wasn’t played among the top teams of the world. His former team-mate Jonty Rhodes also voiced similar concerns while saying ODIs “might be in trouble” going forward but may not go away altogether.

“When T20 first started, people were saying it’s going to put pressure on Test cricket. Amazingly, it hasn’t,” Rhodes said at an event in Mumbai on Tuesday. “Sure, some of the Test cricket looks like T20 at times, there’s some aggressive batting and bowling, but for me it was always understanding that 50-over cricket might be the one format that might be in trouble in the years ahead.

“We’re really fortunate that what 50-overs cricket has is you’ve got really passionate fans who support their team no matter what format. At this stage, I think there will be fewer and fewer bilateral series where there’s a lot of 50-over cricket in the bilateral series. But it’s very difficult to think of cricket without the 50-over version.”

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