Ravi Shastri echoes Shahid Afridi’s suggestion to reduce ODI cricket to 40 overs

One-Day cricket has struggled to find a place for itself in the modern era ever since the rise of the T20 format.

The 50-over game has seen a decline in viewership as well as interest from cricketing boards, who are only eyeing the money-spinning T20 format as their saviour.

Former Indian player and coach Ravi Shastri has been quite vocal about his views on ODI cricket. 

Earlier, Shastri, who spoke about the format being limited to World Cups, suggested that overs should be cut-down to 40, which is a natural progression for the format.

“There is no harm in shortening the span of the game. When one-day cricket started, it was of 60 overs. When we won the World Cup in 1983, it was of 60 overs,”

“After that, people thought that 60 overs were a bit too long. People found that span of overs between 20 to 40 hard to digest. So they reduced it from 60 to 50,”

“So years have gone by now since that decision so why not reduce it from 50 to 40 now. Because you got to be forward-thinking and evolve. It stayed for 50 for too long," Shastri was heard on Fancode while commentating during the 2nd ODI India and West Indies.

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Several former players have voiced opinions that ODIs need to be scrapped altogether. 

This came into the limelight after England’s Test captain Ben Stokes announced his untimely retirement from ODI cricket last week

Interestingly, this is not the first time someone has suggested reducing the number of overs.

Former Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi has spoken about the same in an interview with Samaa TV.

“One-day cricket has become quite boring now. I would suggest to cut ODI cricket from 50 overs to 40 overs in order to make it entertaining,” Afridi said.

READ: Karuna Jain retires from all forms of cricket