The Middle Child Syndrome — An unfounded, unresearched opinion on Cricket.

“Middle-child syndrome” is the idea that if you’re neither the oldest child nor the youngest, you get less attention from your parents and feel “caught in the middle”. Let us take into consideration that this is apocryphal in nature and nothing more, purely because the write up is not about it. It’s about cricket. It will make sense by the end of this, if you get there, trust me.

In 1844, two teams played the first ever international match in the history of the world. It was USA vs Canada in Manhattan, New York and it was a cricket match.

I don’t wish to get into the history of test cricket as much as an opinion I’ve had for a while. Cricket was played before that, but this was the first recorded match between two countries. Cricket within countries continued before and after that match in the form of various cricket clubs in England and other British colonies throughout the 19th Century. Test series between countries as a regular form of cricket also started in the 19th century with the Ashes which has continued to this very day.

Every Ashes series is a spectacle. Not just to fans of the respective cricket teams but to cricket fans across the world. I wake up at 530 AM every time it’s held in Australia, at least for the first match. Heroes were born there, villains were made, techniques were formed and skills were perfected, attacks were dealt, counter attacks designed, test cricket flourished and to this day, while not for everyone, a large section of cricket fans will argue it is the best and most intense form of the game, as will I.

Vigorously, and with enthusiasm that looks strange to an outsider who does not follow the sport, test cricket became an important exhibition in sporting culture for those that loved the sport. Don’t believe me? Watch a Boxing Day test match at the MCG and you’ll know what I’m talking about, even if on television. To me test cricket will always be a proud titan still on the throne of a sporting world that evolved beyond it.

If you’ve made it this far, I’m sure there are at least some of you scratching your heads as to what on twenty two yards I am talking about. I am of course talking about ODI cricket. . .

Okay, let’s back up a bit. The first ODI was played on 5 January 1971 between Australia and England at the MCG. When the first three days of the third Ashes Test were washed out officials decided to abandon the match and, instead, play a one-off one day game consisting of 40 eight-ball overs per side. This led to a new format of the sport, first consisting of 60 overs of 8 balls per over and then to eventually what most of us are now familiar with, that of 50 over per side with 6 balls per over.

The shortened format of the sport helped it become accessible to more people, you could finish it in a day and it was exciting, it gave rise to great aggressive batters. The likes of Sehwag, AB Devilliers, Rohit Sharma, Bevan, Pollard, in the most recent decades would tonk the ball across, a long, long way. Or you could go a couple decades before them and look at one of my favourite batters of all time, The OG Master Blaster, Smokin Joe, King Viv. I don’t think there’s a question he’d go for millions to a franchise in the IPL today. No question.

Then there were the bowlers who with the change in format perfected existing and developed new skills, the cutters, the doosra, the googly, carom balls etc. There is nothing more amazing to watch than an in your face, aggressive, never back down fast bowler, Michael Holding, Courtney Walsh, Dennis Lillee and Mitchell Johnson come to mind.

ODIs did extremely well. Created underdog champions and again became a wonderful spectacle of the sport.

Then came the T20s. A format that was shortened even more. 20 overs a side. A sport that was considered too long in both its test and 50 over formats (by non-cricket watchers only, mind you) was now shortened to about 4 hours in all. That’s amazing. That’s a little more than most baseball games. T20 cricket took the concept of the sport flipped it around 360 degrees, added flair, and gave you some of the most enthralling hours in modern sport. We could now finish work on a weekday, watch a game from start to finish, be back home for a late dinner and ensure we don’t miss our infuriating mid-week catchups that could’ve been an email, at 9AM the next morning.

This was revolutionary for a sport that was so traditional and high-minded in its early days. Don’t forget the 2nd session break in a test is called tea because they literally served tea to the players before they took the field again for the evening session.

There was something that changed however, some of us felt that this new rebel, this little runt of a format would destroy the longest format of the sport. Test cricket would take a backseat. The players wouldn’t want to play test cricket, I mean why would they? Gruelling 5 days of bowling, batting and fielding in the sun for a cricket board paid salary ‘or’ quick fire 4 hour cricket match for a couple of months for a franchise that would pay you in the millions. For young cricketers in developing countries where most cricketers come up the hard way that seems like an easy choice. For a large group of spectators both new to the sport as well as those that got busy with lives, it was a very easy choice as well, you now had something to watch at the end of a long day and not have to spend an entire day on it.

Weirdly though, test cricket did not take a back seat. While franchise cricket and T20s in general are a lot of fun and exciting to watch, test cricket is super interesting. T20 cricket made test cricket fascinating, hear me out. T20 and franchise cricket gave birth to the fearless. Bowlers were no longer afraid of getting hit so they learnt new skills that could be applied in the test format. Batters were less afraid of losing wickets and more and more test matches ended in results and aggressively interesting draws. Just look at what Ben Stokes did at Headingly with a number 11 batter at the other end, or what an Indian team of scrappers did in Australia(to be fair both these could be whole articles). You look back at these recent glorious moments in test match cricket and you see the influence of T20 cricket.

T20 cricket was a success, test cricket was always the Arkenstone of cricket, there was a loser here though, and that if you ask me, is ODI cricket. For however fascinating ODI cricket was in its peak, T20s made it redundant. Where purists were worried about test cricket losing it’s time in the sun, they forgot that ODIs are more or less forgotten.

Why do I say this? Look at the last decade and a bit of cricket, we may remember great T20 matches and incredible test matches, but ODIs are somehow lost in a history that was theirs for a brief moment in time. It is not to say we didn’t have great ODIs, the 2019 CWC Final, England vs New Zealand will forever remain one of my all-time favourite ODI matches (even if the result was not what I was hoping for), but that’s about it. All the other great games played by competitive teams were before T20 cricket took centre stage, at least to me. 435 chased down the first time it was made, Natwest Final 2002, India vs England, Desert Storm, were all matches before T20 took over and some soon after.

I’m sure I missed some games or moments, but this is more an opinion piece than an article of facts and figures, so I hope I’m excused this lapse.

I’m not saying that it’s right or wrong, and to be honest I don’t actually feel good or bad about it. The reason I rambled on for this long is because it was an observation I arrived at and just wanted to put it in words. ODI cricket is too long or too short, I don’t know anymore. I’m excited every time two competitive and equally strong sides play test match cricket, but the ODI series that follows just doesn’t thrill me anymore.

It’s the way of the world I suppose. Maybe it was meant for the sport to evolve that way, I just found it very intriguing that in this passionate discussions by some traditionalists accusing T20 cricket of killing test cricket (nothing wrong with having that opinion), I believe we came to the horrible realisation that ODI cricket was not as electrifying and captivating as T20 cricket and it was not nearly as interesting and fascinating as Test match cricket. It seems for now at least, ODI cricket will go down as the quintessential middle child.