• Khawaja said ODI cricket si slowly losing its place.
• Stokes announced his retirement from the one-day format amid a hefty schedule.
• Test and T20 cricket are currently reigning.

Usman Khawaja believes that ODI cricket is “dying a slow death” and is not shocked that Ben Stokes has left the format.

Stokes, 31, brought the demands of international cricket on players into sharp light when he announced that his 105th One-Day International (ODI) match for England against South Africa would be his last.

Stokes, who has taken over as England’s Test captain, stated that authorities cannot treat players like “cars” and that there is “too much cricket rammed in” to legitimately compete in all three international cricket formats.

Test opener Usman Khawaja, who has not played limited-overs cricket for Australia since 2019, believes that 50-over contests are most likely to be cut from the international schedule.

“My own personal opinion – I know a few of the guys are very similar – you’ve got Test cricket, which is the pinnacle, you’ve got T20 cricket, which obviously has leagues around the world, great entertainment, everyone loves it, and then there’s one-day cricket,” he said.

“I feel like that’s probably the third-ranked out of all of them. I think personally one-day cricket is dying a slow death…there’s still the World Cup, which I think is really fun and it’s enjoyable to watch, but other than that, even myself personally, I’m probably not into one-day cricket as much either.”

[embedpost slug = “/bbl-12-ponting-khawaja-point-out-bbl-concerns-due-to-rising-t20-leagues/”]

As Cricket Australia published tickets for this summer’s international schedule on Friday, Usman Khawaja stated his thoughts. This schedule begins with ODIs against Zimbabwe and New Zealand in September before the Men’s T20 World Cup in October.

In the 1980s and 1990s, an annual triangular series in Australia packed stadiums and made Cricket Australia and the Nine Network money.

South Africa jeopardised their World Cup ambitions by withdrawing from their series against Australia in January to focus on their new T20 league.

Usman Khawaja stated that he did not believe it was difficult to be a three-format player in the present day, but that it would not be simple.

“Not impossible, very tough,” Khawaja said. “So much travelling. If you’re playing all three forms of the game, you’re not at home at all really. And then the demands on your body, mentally, physically and a lot of the guys might be playing also the IPL.

“There’s a lot of cricket going on. Yes, you get to pick and choose, I guess, in certain respects what you want to play but look it can be very tough at the moment.”

However, he remains optimistic about the future of Test cricket ahead of Australia’s summer matches against the West Indies and South Africa.

“The majority of people I talk to still love Test cricket,” he said. “It’s my favourite format. Think Test cricket still has a very strong presence so don’t really see that going anywhere. Think both [Tests and T20] can be quite easily balanced, but then you ask yourself the question does one-day cricket give.”

[embedpost slug = “/usman-khawaja-urges-cricket-australia-ceo-to-privatize-bbl/”]