By Dhanajaya Senaratne
Arguably, One Day International Cricket is the highest standard of popular cricket. The high quality of cricket is embedded to the One Day game as many cricket stalwarts still rank One Day cricket well above the risky T20s.
One Day cricket began in early sixties as there was too much time gap between English County matches. At the same time, there were fewer crowds for first class matches and the county officials were in trouble of finding enough money to run tournaments. They were looking for new ideas when the Leicestershire secretary, Mike Turner, came out with a brilliant solution to fill the time gap.
The suggestion was upheld and there were some quick telephone calls between the county officials of Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire. All agreed for One Day Tournament and the inaugural match of the Midlands Knock-Out Cup was between Derbyshire and Leicestershire.
Fortunately or unfortunately, not many people know the fact that one of our own legends, Stanly Jayasinghe, has played in the world’s first ever One Day match. On May 02, 1962, Stanly Jayasinghe played a match winning innings of 49 not out for Leicestershire. After a close match at Grace Road, the hosts won by seven runs.
Nine years later, the international version of the game began.
The first three days of the third Test between Australia and England were washed off. The match was abandoned but the crowds were still there at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. In Australia, especially in Melbourne, cricket and sport are flowing in the blood streams of people. The officials have to please them.
They decided to play a one-off limited over game, consisting of 40 overs per side on January 05, 1971, Each over consisted of 8 balls and that was the birth of One Day International cricket. With Chappell brothers (Ian – 60 and Greg 22 not out) coming out with substantial contributions, Australia won the match by 5 wickets.
The history was created.
The Packer circus between 1977 and 1979 was a revolution. Packer introduced colored clothing and white ball to the game, where Television Company (Channel Nine) was running the whole show. International Cricket Council banned few players for playing in World Series Cricket and the world cricket was on the verge of possible split. However, the English cricket official acted sawfly and cleverly to save the world body from being split into two and later, embedded some of the Packer creations to the International game that we enjoy today.
Since then, there were uncountable incidents to change the face of One Day the game. Almost half a century later, the entire world focuses their attention to Pakistan as eight teams vie for honors at the Champion’s Trophy.
Today, the commercialization of the game is such as USD 2.24 million cash prize is offered to the champions.
It’s really sad that Sri Lanka is not taking part in this event because the islanders were placed at 9th position of the ICC ODI rankings after 2023 World Cup. Only the top eight teams by then were eligible to play in the Champion’s Trophy 2025.
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