Evolution of ODI Cricket from 1990s to Present.

Many of us know the 1992 World Cup for one major reason i.e SA losing a rain-affected match when there was no proper method for evaluating scores. But one major thing was , the new phase of ODIs. In the 1980s scoring 200 would be a match-winning score but NZ brought that to an end with the attacking style of cricket starting from the powerplay itself.

1992 World Cup.

Mark Greatbatch started the trend of pinch-hitting in cricket. In all the matches he played in the 1992 world cup his strike rate was above 90 which was very high in those days. This strategy was new NZ took full advantage of it. One more thing which NZ brought in was opening the innings with spin bowling. None of the teams would open with a spin during those times so to bring in a change they opened with spin and Deepak Patel would finish his full quota of 10 overs on the trot. NZ set the trend but could not finish the world cup on a high.

1996 World Cup.

Taking the baton from NZ was SL. Having won just 4 world cup games previously they went on to win the 1996 world cup. The strategy which they used similar to NZ in the previous edition worked out. Sanath Jayasuriya and Kaluwitharana were both explosive openers who hit shots at will. In the middle order, they had Aravinda de Silva who steadied the innings and give them a fighting total. The spinners were very instrumental including Jayasuriya who had a good strike rate with the ball. These things are done collectively earned them the coveted World Cup.

The late 2000s

Nowadays hitting 300 is not enough to defend such has been the trend. England took up the trend after their disastrous 2015 world cup. They too like SL opened with Roy and Bairstow both explosive batsmen giving them solid starts. Then Root and Morgan play the anchor role with Stokes and Buttler finishing the innings. In all, they only used to play an explosive brand of cricket which won them the WC.

The role of a finisher in the early 2000s was just striking the ball at a 100 strike rate which was highly regarded. Now the role has changed completely where the minimum strike needs to be around 150.

These were the changes that made ODI cricket very interesting starting from NZ to SL and at last to England. But now all the countries have adopted this change with explosive batsmen at top and finisher at bottom becoming very vital.

Information was taken from R.Ashwin (Youtube channel) and Prasanna