So far, the ongoing ICC World Cup 2023 has been hit or miss, with only the main matches, mostly the hosts India games,having a strong audience presence. While the neutral games are failing to fill the stadium despite the nation’s enthusiasm for the game. Shane Bond, the legendary pacer from New Zealand, said he can understand why people are not coming at the game.
He finds it difficult to sit through an eight-hour match. The 48-year-old former bowler believed that the reason T20 cricket has been so successful. He claimed 147 wickets in 82 ODI matches.
New Zealand great finds it’s too hard to sit and watch a match that is played whole day.
“I think I am always interested, it’s the first thing I do in the morning is to check the score since it’s the World Cup .But would I watch it, I think no,” Shane Bond said on ESPN Cricinfo. “I am always interested but I won’t watch it the whole day because it’s very long. That’s the beauty of T20 cricket and that’s why people love it because we see more upsets. It’s a good format for the smaller teams.“
The Kiwi cricketer used the South Africa vs. Bangladesh ICC World Cup 2023 match as an example. He said the match seemed to drag on for two hours, with Mahmadullah scoring a pointless century. As South Africa crushed Bangladesh by 149 runs at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium.
“In T20 cricket, if a game is one-sided then it will only last for two hours. Yesterday’s game was over in 70 overs but we had to go through a process of another 20 overs to watch. Because somebody was knocking a century. It’s good for the player but not for the viewers,” said Bond.
The former Kiwi cricketer acknowledged that, although ODI cricket provides an opportunity for some of the greatest players to showcase their abilities. He still loves the format and believes that it can only endure as long as cricket fans continue to be interested.
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