“Three formats, domestic T20 leagues, and IPL”- Mark Taylor questions cricket schedules after Ben Stokes’ sudden ODI retirement

“Three formats, domestic T20 leagues, and IPL”- Mark Taylor questions cricket schedules after Ben Stokes’ sudden ODI retirement

Ben Stokes

Right after the three-day ODI match between England and India, the former’s all-rounder Ben Stokes bid adieu to ODI cricket, giving his reason of all-three formats being unsustainable.

“We are not cars,” Stokes told the BBC. “You can’t just fill us up and we’ll go out there and be ready to be fuelled up again. We had a Test series and then the one-day team had a series going on at the same time – that was a bit silly.

“I just feel like there is too much cricket rammed in for people to play all three formats now. It is a lot harder than it used to be. The more cricket that is played, the better for the sport, but you want a product that is of the highest quality,” he added.

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“One form of international cricket has to give”- Mark Taylor

Ben Stokes
Mark Taylor and Ben Stokes

Former Australia captain Mark Taylor said that cricket administrators should be concerned by Ben Stokes’ decision to retire from ODIs. He said that one form of cricket has to give because players like Ben Stokes are high-in demand and they are well paid by the T20 competitions.

“I think alarm bells have been ringing for some time, to be brutally honest,” he told Wide World of Sports. The issue is where the game is at with three international formats, then all the domestic T20 leagues, headed up by the IPL which is huge.”

Taylor aslo opined that many believe that T20 cricket should be played on at the domestic level, which is where it started out.

“There’s a very good argument for that, but the problem is the rich get richer and the poor don’t make anything out of it. Everyone would gravitate to the bigger nations like the IPL and the BBL, and the smaller countries would miss out.”

“Think back to how big the 2019 World Cup was, and Ben Stokes was one of the stars of that, now he’s retired from that format. Do you play less one-dayers, and does that risk the future of the World Cup, which could then be diminished or die altogether. I don’t know how you solve the problem.”

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