Srinagar: England Star all-rounder Moeen Ali has jumped into the ongoing hot topic in International cricket by saying that he fears for the death of ‘boring’ ODI cricket.
The debate has raged in International cricket after the sudden retirement by Ben Stokes from ODI format. Former cricketers have predicted that more players will follow as ODI seem to have lost relevance amid mushrooming of T20 leagues.
“It’s all over the place at the minute. You’re trying to get a couple of franchise gigs which are decent, but you’re going to miss a couple of Test matches or the ODIs – that’s the horrible bit, I think, because you want to play for England as much as you can. You don’t want to be missing… I used to hate resting when I was a bit younger,” ESPNcricinfo quoted Moeen Ali as saying.
“At the moment it’s not sustainable in my opinion. Something has to be done because I fear losing the 50-over format in a couple of years because it’s almost like the long, boring one, if that makes sense. It’s almost like you’ve got T20s, you’ve got the Test matches which are great and then the 50 overs is just in the middle – there’s no importance given to it at the moment,” Moeen Ali added.
“So yeah, I think there’s too much – personally I feel like there’s too much going on. It’s great in a way, because there’s always cricket being played, but it should never come in the way of international cricket in my opinion,” Moeen Ali further said as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.
“International cricket in all three formats is by far the best cricket to play. There’s no doubt about that,” he said. “But I do worry there are so many tournaments out there that players are retiring more now – and you’ll see more retiring soon – because of overlapping schedules,” said Moeen.