ODIs are cricket's laboratory. The third umpire, night cricket, DRS and a host of other innovations were first trialled in this format. The game we have today is played under vastly different playing conditions in almost every aspect to the ones we started with in 1971, when Australia and England played an impromptu limited-overs game in front of 46,000 spectators to compensate for a rain-ruined MCG Test. At the milestone of 5000th Men's ODIs, we look at how the playing conditions have evolved over time to arrive at the game that exists today.
The number of overs
Cricketers of today, especially batters, are mortified at the thought of ODIs being reduced to 40 overs a side, but the duration of the contest has kept changing with time. The first ODI, in fact, was a 40-over contest. However, they were eight-ball overs as was then the custom in Australia and New Zealand. So for a while we had two versions of ODI cricket: 40 overs of eight balls each in the southern hemisphere and 55 overs of six balls each in England.
Then came the first Men's World Cup, in England in 1975, which had matches of 60 six-ball overs each. Following the World Cup, New Zealand diverged from Australia and hosted 35-over ODIs of eight balls each. So now we had three versions. Pakistan, the first country to host an ODI outside England, Australia and New Zealand, went for the New Zealand version: 35 overs of eight balls each.
When the party reached the West Indies, in Berbice, Guyana, in 1977, we had a fourth variety: 45 overs of six balls each. It was in 1978 that West Indies, the first kings of ODI cricket, hosted what would become the most popular length of ODI cricket: 50 overs of six balls each. Then again, they ran out of daylight in St John's, Antigua, and were unable to complete the contest. We will later tackle how they decided the winner that day because that is another playing condition that kept changing for a long time.
In 1978-79, Pakistan ditched the Australian system and moved to ODIs of 40 six-ball overs for each side. While England continued to play 55-overs-a-side bilaterals, the World Cup of 1979 went back to 60 overs each.
By the time the 1979 World Cup arrived, Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket had captured the imagination in Australia. Among other things, Packer standardised one-day contests in Australia to 50 six-ball overs per side. Right after the World Cup, Australia started a multi-nation World Series Cup in its summer and stuck with the Packer formula, which was also followed by New Zealand.
Now we had Australia, New Zealand and the West Indies hosting what would go on to become the universal duration. England stuck with 55-over contests, and Pakistan remained less ambitious with daylight and settled at 40.
In 1981-82, India finally gave in to the pressure of hosting ODIs and opted for the most popular 50-over format. However, none of the three ODIs against England started on time in that foggy winter. All three were curtailed at the start and struggled with bad light at the end. In the same season, Sri Lanka attained Test status and also hosted their first ODI: a 45-over affair of six balls each.
In the lead-up to the 1983 World Cup, Australia, New Zealand and the West Indies had found their sweet spot of 50 overs, Pakistan remained conservative with daylight expectations and stuck with 40 overs, Sri Lanka pegged theirs at 45, and England kept making use of long summer days with 55. At least the length of the over was now standardised. Come the 1983 World Cup, however, and we were back to 60 overs.
World champions now, India jumped on the bandwagon proper in the winter of 1983, but their decision to play 50-over ODIs proved to be too ambitious in the winter. None of the seven matches, played against Pakistan and West Indies, started on time, thus forcing curtailment.
In 1984, Sharjah entered the fray and made an India-like start: unable to fit the scheduled 50-over matches into the day. In its 16th attempt, in Nagpur in January 1985, India finally hosted a full 50-over match. By March 1985, Sharjah too found days long enough to meet its ambition of hosting 50-over matches.
In November 1986, Pakistan moved to 50-over contests and joined India in hosting the 1987 World Cup, the first one outside England and the first one of the duration that we now know. Post the World Cup, Pakistan went back to 40-over matches.
In October 1988, Bangladesh became the newest ODI hosts, starting off with 45-over contests. By August 1992, Sri Lanka had come around to the idea of 50-over contests. By that time, Australia and New Zealand had hosted the first World Cup with day-night matches. Later in the year, South Africa and Zimbabwe hosted ODI cricket for the first time, both going with 50 six-ball overs.
Pakistan moved back to 50-over ODIs in the winter of 1994 when it hosted its first tri-series. Post the resounding success of the 1996 World Cup, co-hosted by Sri Lanka, Pakistan and India, England, too, fell in line to finally give us a uniform 50-over format that we have grown so accustomed to. A host of neutral venues that mushroomed after 1996 had no choice but to play 50 overs as did Bangladesh when ODI cricket finally returned there in 1998.
Shortened matches
Rain and bad light were the main reasons for matches not reaching their conclusions. England was lucky with light during its summer, and for a long time maintained reserve days for contests to resume where they had stopped. Thus these weren't strictly one-day matches despite the name. However, the first time an ODI in England ran into rough weather, against New Zealand in July 1973, there was no reserve day. Even though a storm during the lunch break turned the ground into a swamp, England's innings wasn't curtailed. The formula here was simplistic: England would bat through, and New Zealand would have to maintain a better run-rate provided a minimum of 30 overs was possible. A second storm meant even England couldn't complete their innings, and we had our first no-result.
Other countries were more practical and shortened both innings if they had the opportunity, but New Zealand didn't even bother with a reserve day or a separate ruling for bad light to begin with. In the first ODI New Zealand hosted, in February 1973 in Christchurch, Pakistan had no choice but to bat in what Wisden called "Stygian gloom and light rain".
Outside England at least, the minimum overs required to constitute a match was relaxed to 15 a side, but that had to be agreed upon by the two sides before the start of a tour. A good example of it was in Chandigarh in January 1985 when a wet outfield reduced the match to 15 overs: England scored 121 for 6, India fell short by seven runs. Not a bad run rate for that first T20-like contest.
Later that year, India scored 194 for 6 in 40 overs at P Sara Oval in Colombo. With the light deteriorating rapidly, Sri Lanka were set 72 in 15 overs under the same simplistic run-rate rule, but were offered the light at 32 for 4 in 9.2 overs, which they gladly accepted and walked away with a no-result.
Apart from the run-rate method, there was also a comparative-scores method used in the 1980s. There were two versions of it. One was to simply be ahead of the opposition's score at the same time. So if you were forced to come off at the end of 45 overs, you needed to have scored more than what the side batting first did in its first 45. The other criterion was to have scored more than the opposition in its last 45.
There was no consistent method; every tour had its own pre-agreed regulations. Often captains didn't bother. There was an instance in Sharjah in October 1991 when bad light struck towards the end of a tight chase. Neither the players in the middle nor India's captain Mohammad Azharuddin in the dressing room knew what the rule was. The reserve umpire didn't know either, and the tournament director Asif Iqbal could be seen running from door to door. Eventually India had to play the match out with street lights on outside the stadium. Twelve to get off Waqar Younis' last over is difficult in the brightest of light; it was nigh impossible here.
By the time the 1992 World Cup came around, at least nobody could complain they didn't know the rules. Because the simplistic run-rate method was loaded in the favour of the chasing side, a Richie-Benaud-led committee came up with a new formula: if a match was curtailed after one side had completed its innings, its lowest-scoring overs would be taken out to arrive at a target or a par score provided both sides had had a chance to bat at least 15 overs each. So, in Brisbane, when India's chase against Australia was shortened by three overs, the target came down by only two runs because there had been two maidens and a two-run over in Australia's innings.
This method ran into inevitable controversy when South Africa tried to game the inflexibility around the match timings but eventually ran afoul of this rule in their semi-final against England. Australia's response to this was to improvise on the rule thus: taking the highest scoring overs of the team batting first and deducting it by 0.5% for each over lost. So if this rule had been in place during that India-Australia encounter, India's target would have been reduced by a further 1.5% of the 235 that Australia scored in their most productive overs.
By 1995, the ICC came up with a uniform formula, which was the most sophisticated way to adjudicate on shortened matches yet. Under this rule there was a predetermined percentage factor to be achieved by the chasing side in shortened chases. The factor was 66.67% in 25 overs, 68.4 in 26 overs, 70.2 in 27 overs, with increments decreasing gradually up to 100% in 50 overs. It meant the chasing side was required to score two-thirds of the target in half the overs in case of a shortened chase. If the side batting first didn't get to bat its full quota, its score was also adjusted according to the same percentage factor. So if a team batting first got only 45 overs and the chasing side got 30, the target was adjusted thus: score * 30-over factor / 45-over factor.
This system failed to take wickets into account. Australia didn't agree with it and continued with its improvised version of the 1992 World Cup rule.
It was on January 1, 1997 that the Duckworth-Lewis method was first used in an ODI. This system took both overs and wickets into account as resources and provided par scores for any given time in the second innings for the loss of any number of wickets. The ICC formally adopted it in 1999. The method kept getting more and more elegant. A third statistician, Steven Stern, added more to this method originally devised by Frank Duckworth and Tony Lewis to give us what we know today as the DLS method.
The ball
The first four World Cups were played with the red Duke's ball, before Australia and New Zealand introduced the white Kookaburra and day-night matches in 1992. India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka followed suit in 1996. Australia had been using the white Kookaburra ever since the days of World Series Cricket, when day-night cricket made its first appearance and necessitated a replacement for the red ball, which was impossible to sight properly under floodlights. Around the 1992 World Cup, England still stuck with red balls, but offered the team winning the toss a choice between a Reader's and a Duke's ball both in Tests and ODIs. For example, in the fiery summer of 1992, Pakistan played five Tests and five ODIs. Eight of those international matches were played with the Reader's and two with the Duke's.
The 1999 ODI World Cup in England was played with the white Duke's, which swung plenty and resulted in a low-scoring tournament. By 2001, ODI cricket had switched entirely to coloured clothing even during day games so the red ball became untenable. The last ODI with red ball and white kits was India vs Zimbabwe in Rajkot in December 2000.
By the 2003 World Cup, the playing conditions were now under the ICC's ambit. The world body went with white Kookaburras because that was the ball South Africa and Zimbabwe had been using. To get used to that ball, England also switched to the white Kookaburra at home. Thus the white Kookaburra became the unofficial official ball of ODI cricket. Imagine the course of history if the first World Cup under the ICC playing conditions had been played in England.
No ball manufacturer, though, could produce a white ball that lasted the entirety of 50 overs. Invariably by the 34th or the 35th over, the ball would become too dirty to sight, thus prompting a change in almost every match. To counter that, the ICC introduced two white balls for an ODI innings, one from each end.
This created a new problem. The balls now didn't age enough to be able to reverse-swing or turn in standard conditions in ODI cricket. In 2025, the ICC allowed the fielding team to carry on with any one of the two balls after 34 overs, thus allowing one of the balls to be used for 33 overs.
Field restrictions
This is another aspect of the game that has been tinkered with incessantly. In the first 10 years of ODI cricket, though, only the exiled Apartheid state of South Africa implemented field restrictions in its domestic cricket. Packer introduced them in World Series Cricket matches, and Australia formally trialled field restrictions in 1980-81. The idea was simple: to dissuade overly defensive fields and to encourage stroke-making even against the new ball.
It had all come to a head in 1979 in Sydney when West Indies needed three off the last ball and Mike Brearley placed all his 10 fielders - yes, including the wicketkeeper - on the fence.
Throughout the 1980s, the field restrictions were subject to an agreement between the two participating sides. In 1981, for example, when India hosted its first ODI, England wanted field restrictions for the entirety of the innings, but the BCCI insisted on the first 15 overs and had its way.
The 1992 World Cup was the first one with standardised field restrictions: only two fielders outside the 30-yard circle for the first 15 overs of the innings and only five for the rest of the innings. It resulted in the concept of pinch-hitting at first and, in the long run, the promotion of the most accomplished batters to the top of the innings. Think Sachin Tendulkar, think Mark Waugh.
Early field restrictions also mandated two catching fielders apart from the wicketkeeper in the first 10 overs. To remove subjectivity around a catching fielder, two 15-yard circles used to be drawn with the wicket at each end as the centre. The catching fielder had to be within those 15 yards. This requirement was withdrawn in 2015.
By 2015, though, the field restrictions had undergone other changes. In 2005, the term field restrictions was dropped and sets of powerplays were introduced. The first 10 overs were a mandatory powerplay, the timing of the remaining two sets of five each was left to the fielding side. Catching fielders were mandatory only in the mandatory powerplay. In 2008, the batting side got to choose the timing of one of the two optional powerplays. The changes in 2008 also relaxed the restrictions in the optional powerplays, allowing three fielders outside the 30-yard circle. In 2011, the sides were allowed to pick these surge periods only between the 16th and the 40th overs.
In 2012, to further invigorate the non-powerplay overs, the ICC changed the allowance of fielders outside the circle from five to four. To compensate, the bowling powerplay was done away with, and the batting powerplay, during which only three fielders were allowed outside the circle, had to be completed by the 40th over.
In 2015, the batting powerplay was dropped, and the last 10 overs allowed five overs outside the circle. The requirement for two catching fielders in the mandatory powerplay was also done away with. These remain the standard ODI field restrictions as of today.
The tiebreaker
The first tied ODI ended in much controversy. It was the second of the best-of-three finals between Australia and West Indies in February 1984, and it gave West Indies an unassailable 1-0 lead. West Indies were under the impression they didn't need to play the third final because the best Australia could now manage was 1-1, which would still give West Indies the trophy based on their superior record in the league stages.
By the time another ODI ended with scores level, we had two sets of tiebreakers in place: number of wickets lost, and the 25-over score in case both sides had lost the same number of wickets. Abdul Qadir was clearly not mindful of the second regulation when he risked a second run off the last ball to try to go past India's 212 for 6 in Hyderabad. The run-out made it 212 for 7 for Pakistan, giving India the win. As it turned out, had Qadir settled with one, Pakistan would have won by the virtue of a higher score at 25 overs.
In October 1988, Pakistan were on the right side of levelled scores against Australia. They levelled the scores off the first ball of the last over, but lost Wasim Akram after three dots. Qadir survived an lbw narrowly off the last ball, giving Pakistan the tiebreaker by one wicket.
By 1989, tiebreakers were done away with except for tournament knockouts. The most famous example is the 1999 World Cup semi-final when Australia progressed on the basis of having beaten South Africa in the earlier contest between the two sides.
Starting with the 2011 World Cup, tiebreakers, if necessary in knockout games, were changed to T20-style Super Overs. When the 2019 final was decided by a boundary count-back after even the Super Over was tied, a provision was made to play Super Overs for as long as the conditions allowed.
In 2023, the Super Over tiebreaker was made mandatory for every tied ODI and not just knockouts in World Cups.
The Super Sub
Before the IPL's Impact Player came ODI cricket's Super Sub. Teams had to name 11 players and one Super Sub at the toss, and were allowed to make one substitution at any time in the match. Vikram Solanki became the first Super Sub. The experiment didn't even last a year.