One-day cricket

One-day cricket is a version of the sport of cricket that is completed in one day, as distinct from Test cricket and first-class cricket which can take up to five days to complete.

In a one-day match, each team bats only once, and their innings are limited to a set number of overs, usually fifty in an international or forty (in the UK) in a top-grade domestic one-day match. Other changes to the game include additional restrictions on where fielders may be placed (preventing teams from placing every fielder on the edge of the field to prevent boundaries), and stricter rules on wide balls and short deliveries (to prevent teams from restricting scoring by bowling deliveries that batters have no chance to score from). In many games, a white ball is used rather than the traditional red, and the need to paint rather than stain the white ball gives it subtly different characteristics in flight as it wears.

International one-day matches are usually played in brightly coloured clothing (leading some to give it the unflattering nickname pyjama cricket), and often in a "day-night" format where the first innings of the day occurs in the afternoon and the second occurs under stadium lights.

One-day cricket began between English county teams in the 1960s. The first one-day international was played in Melbourne in 1971, and the quadrennial cricket World Cup began in 1975. Many of the "packaging" innovations, such as coloured clothing, were as a result of World Series Cricket, a "rebel" series set up outside the cricketing establishment by Australian entrepreneur Kerry Packer.

One-day tournaments occur in various forms:

• The World Cup
  • Involves all test nations and qualifying associate nations
  • Consists of a round-robin group stage, a Super Six stage, semifinals, and finals.
  • Held once in four years
  • International Cricket Council determines venue

• International Cricket Council Champions Trophy
  • Involves all test nations and qualifying associate nations
  • Consists of knockout games (if a team loses a single game, it is "knocked out" of the tournament)
  • Held once in four years between World Cups
  • International Cricket Council determines venue

• Series
  • Involves two nations
  • Consists of three to seven games, all matches are played even if series result is determined
  • Played when one nation "tours" another
  • Usually played in one of the two participating nations

• Triangular Tournament
  • Involves three nations
  • Consists of a round-robin group stage, each team playing the other two or three times, and finals
  • Played in one of the three participating nations or in neutral venues

Notes:

• Quadrangular tournaments (four teams) are held, but rarely
• The semifinals and finals are single games, except in the annual VB Series Triangular Tournament, when the finals are a three game series
• Triangular Tournaments are most common

One-day cricket is popular with spectators, as it can encourage aggressive, risky, entertaining batting, often results in cliffhanger endings and it ensures that a spectator can go and see an entire match without committing to five days of continuous attendance. However, many fans of Test match cricket regard it as ignoring the skills of bowlers, prone to random results not reflective of the relative skill of the teams, and with modern one-day tactics where batters take few risks outside the first and last few overs, lacking in the claimed excitement. Such criticisms have gained steam with the revitalisation, led by Australia, of Test matches.

Also see: List of cricketers