One-Day International

One-Day International (ODI) is a form of cricket, which is played over 50 overs per side between two national cricket teams. The Cricket World Cup is played in this format. One-Day International matches are also called "Limited Overs Internationals (LOI)", because they are limited overs cricket matches between national sides, and if the weather interferes they are not always completed in one day. Important one-day matches, international and domestic, often have two days set aside, the second day being a "reserve" day to allow more chance of the game being completed if a result is not possible on the first day (for instance if play is prevented or interrupted by rain).

The international one-day game is a late twentieth-century development. The first ODI was played on 5 January 1971 between Australia and England at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. When the first three days of the third 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. Australia won the game by 5 wickets.

In the late 1970s, Kerry Packer established the rival World Series Cricket competition, and it introduced many of the features of One-Day International cricket that are now commonplace, including coloured uniforms, matches played at night under floodlights with a white ball and dark sight screens, and, for television broadcasts, multiple camera angles, effects microphones to capture sounds from the players on the pitch, and on-screen graphics. The first of the matches with coloured uniforms was the WSC Australians in wattle gold versus WSC West Indians in coral pink, played at VFL Park in Melbourne on 17th January 1979.

Rules

In the main the Laws of cricket apply. However, in ODIs, each team gets to bat only a fixed number of overs. In the early days of ODI cricket, the number of overs was generally 60 overs per side but now it has been uniformly fixed at 50 overs.

Simply stated the game works as follows:

An ODI is contested by 2 teams of 11 players each.

- The Captain of the side winning the toss chooses to either bat or bowl (field) first.

- The team batting first sets the target score in a single innings. The innings lasts until the batting side is "all out" (i.e., 10 of the 11 batting players are "out") or all of the first side's allotted overs are used up.

- Each bowler is restricted to bowling a maximum of 10 overs (fewer in the case of rain-reduced matches and in any event generally no more than one fifth or 20% of the total overs per innings).

- The team batting second tries to score more than the target score in order to win the match. Similarly, the side bowling second tries to bowl out the second team for less than the target score in order to win.

- If the number of runs scored by both teams are equal when the second team loses all of its wickets or exhausts all its overs, then the game is declared as a 'tie' (regardless of the number of wickets lost by either team).

Where a number of overs are lost, for example, due to inclement weather conditions, then the number of overs may be reduced. Where the number of overs available for the team batting second is perforce different from the number of overs faced by the team that batted first, the result may be determined by the Duckworth-Lewis method.

The bowling team is subject to fielding restrictions stipulating that nine fielders, including two fielders in catching positions, must be inside the fielding circle

for a set number of overs. Traditionally, the fielding restrictions applied for the first 15 overs of each innings.

One-Day International records

The record for the highest innings total in any List A limited overs match is 443 for nine by Sri Lanka against Netherlands in their One Day International 50-overs match at Amstelveen on July 4th, 2006. The lowest team total is 35 all out by Zimbabwe against Sri Lanka in Harare, 2004.

The most runs scored by both sides in any List A limited overs match is 872: Australia, batting first, scored 434 for four in 50 overs, and yet were beaten by South Africa who scored 438 for nine with a ball to spare during their One-Day International at Johannesburg in 2006.

The highest individual innings is 194 by Saeed Anwar for Pakistan against India in Chennai, 1996-97 when he surpassed Viv Richards' 189 against England in 1984. The best bowling figures are 8-19 by Chaminda Vaas for Sri Lanka v Zimbabwe in Colombo, 2001-02 - he is the only player to take eight wickets in a One Day international.