One-Day Internationals are part and parcel of modern cricket. Limited overs competitions of whatever length, international or domestic, are acknowledged to be great money-spinners and have been credited with saving cricket in the days when Test matches were losing their lustre back in the 1970s and 1980s. It is therefore quite amusing to discover that the very first official ODI took place by accident, just over 40 years ago, on 5th January 1971. The MCG celebrated in style with Shane Watson's brilliant century yesterday!
Many Tests have been badly affected by rain, and the Melbourne Ashes Test in 1970-1 suffered more than most. The first three days were completely washed out and clearly there was no chance of staging a proper contest in the remaining two. In a bit of forward thinking, rare in those days, both England and Australian authorities agreed to rescue the situation and give the disappointed Victoria cricket fans (no Barmy Army in those days!) something else to watch by abandoning the Test match and holding instead what was to become not just a one-off game but also retrospectively the world's first recognised one-day international.
More than 46,000 came through the gates to witness the event at the MCG, with each innings allocated a maximum of 40 overs. Remember at that time cricket in Australia consisted of eight-ball overs and so was roughly equivalent to the current 50-over format in terms of balls bowled. Limited-over cricket was nothing new, of course. In England, the 60-over Gillette Cup was already well established, and its little brother, the 40-over Sunday League, had proved popular in its two years' existence. Therefore both sides should have known what to expect, but who would triumph?
Bill Lawry won the toss and unsurprisingly put England into bat. Openers Geoff Boycott and John Edrich would hardly be first on selectors' teamsheets for an ODI by today's standards but they were the Test players and so it was they who strode out onto the MCG pitch to face the experienced Graham McKenzie and young Alan Thomson. The Aussie pacemen started well, and Boycott tapped and nudged his way to a painful eight runs from 37 balls before becoming the first ODI victim, caught by Lawry off Thomson. Only Basil D'Oliviera could be considered a good one-day player but it was John Edrich who held the innings together, scoring 82 from 119 deliveries. Alan Knott added 24 later on to give the total a hint of respectability: 190 all out.
The Aussie skipper's decision to bat second was a no-brainer and his team had the ability to pace the innings nicely. All seven batsmen reached double-figures, the boundary count almost three times what England had achieved (a paltry seven!). Top scorer Ian Chappell even hit the game's only six on his way to sixty before his brother Greg and new wicket-keeper Rod Marsh saw them home with more than five overs to spare.
It was to be more than 18 months before the next ODI took place, between the same countries but on the Australians' tour of England in 1972. England gained their revenge, winning two of the three matches, but it was a long time before international limited over cricket became a staple of the sport. Outside the new World Cup competition, launched in 1975, ODIs remained rare throughout that decade. Indeed there were sixty more such matches played in 2010 alone than in the whole of the 1970s!
Of those who played in that inaugural One-Day International, only Greg Chappell and Rod Marsh went on to represent their country in more than 50 ODIs. Indeed, several never played another ODI fixture, including Lawry, Thomson and Connolly of Australia and England's Cowdrey and Shuttleworth. Nowadays, it is not unusual for cricketers to have notched up more than 400 appearances in this form of cricket but it's all a far cry from that 'one-off' Test replacement forty years ago. A belated 'Happy birthday' to the ODI!
