The Three Formats of Cricket Explained

Cricket is an extremely well-celebrated game in India and worldwide. In this game, all you have to do to play is learn how to use the ball and the bat, and you are set to score some amazing runs on the boundary and take a couple of stunning wickets.  The game of cricket was introduced by the Britishers to the Indian market and the world and has caught on the world of sports like fire ever since its entry. Nowadays, people even play cricket online on fantasy apps, and if you do not know how to play fantasy cricket, there are several guides to help you get introduced to the game. It is an amazing experience, and you get a lot of information on the daily cricket schedules and performance statistics of present cricket players, which increases your knowledge of the game. Let’s check out some of the best formats of cricket played worldwide and how they impact everyone around the globe.

One Day Internationals

One Day Internationals are games that take a single day to play and are one of the most favorite formats of cricket, as all games get over by the final part of the scheduled day. People can go back home with a full game experience rather than watching a half-game of cricket and waiting in anticipation for the next day. The games began for the first time in 1971 and have been regular since then. Each team plays an innings of 50 overs in this game, and this format reached its peak popularity during the 1980s. Since the 1980s, incidents have led ODIs to become the most accepted form of cricket. The ICC WorldCup, the most prestigious format of cricket, is held every four years and is also conducted in the fashion of a One Day International. 

Since the birth of this format, ICC has made it the official format for playing major title games as players seemed to respond to the style and fashion, and fans reacted more positively to it than test matches. In case of ties in these matches, the judges introduce a super over where each team gets six balls to score runs. The team with the maximum runs in this particular over is declared the winner. If there is a further draw in the game, the team with the maximum boundaries is chosen as the winner, which happened in 2019 when there was a draw between New Zealand and England.

Test Cricket

This is the format that was first introduced to cricket in the year of 1877. At present, this play is constrained to a five-day game where each team gets to play two game innings each for all the days, and the game is pretty long for the spectators, and people with a lot of time in their hands only enjoy it. You can see people casually coming in on test matches and having a more calm and relaxed experience rather than adrenaline infused one where fans are always outrageous.

The outcomes of the test match are simple, either a team can win a game, or there can be a tie. If the team playing first manages to get a good score and put down all the wickets of the defending side, then they win the game. If the team is playing the second innings scores above the rival team’s first innings, they manage to grab a win. A tie occurs when the defending team bowls out all the batsmen, and the score is the same as in the first half of their play.

Having a draw in a test match is the rarest phenomenon in cricket and has never seen happen. Since the games began in 1877, there have been only two instances in over 2000 test matches played worldwide. 

T20 Cricket

This is the most popular and shortest form of cricket, widely appreciated by fans and players because of its energetic format and action delivered in a packed form.  Each team gets a hold of twenty overs to make their runs on the board, and then the rival team gets on the chase to beat their score. Most rules for this game mirror the One Day Internationals, and draws are settled with a Super Over, where each team gets six balls to try the maximum score they can make.

 International T20 invites the widest variety of players worldwide, and there are presently 20 nations that play the game, including 53 countries with dedicated teams for One Day Internationals. The tournament of T20 started in 2007 and was won by India, and since then, it has been going full force. India has developed an Indian Premier League stylized around this 20-over format which has gained massive popularity and is one of the most viewed games internationally.

Final Words

Since the creation of cricket, the game has undergone several changes and evolved throughout the decade with the knowledge and input from various governing bodies and other star players. Cricket is a fantastic game, and later next year, we will see another type of cricket come into the sports world, which is named The Hundred; and will be a much shorter format than the T20, which is the most celebrated tournament at the moment. Since the players and fans love the game so much, it is evolving out of the box every year and catering itself quite well to the audience of the world.

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