Note: Most of the information here pertains to men's cricket. ODI matches are also played in women's cricket.

The Melbourne Cricket Ground hosts an ODI match between Australia and India. The men wearing yellow are the batsmen, while the men wearing blue are the fielding team.

A night match at Old Trafford.

One-Day International (ODI) is a form of cricket, which is played over 50 overs per side between two national cricket teams. The Cricket World Cup is played in this format. One-Day International matches are also called "Limited Overs Internationals (LOI)", because they are limited overs cricket matches between national sides, and if the weather interferes they are not always completed in one day. Important one-day matches, international and domestic, often have two days set aside, the second day being a "reserve" day to allow more chance of the game being completed if a result is not possible on the first day (for instance if play is prevented or interrupted by rain).

The international one-day game is a late twentieth-century development. The first ODI was played on 5 January 1971 between Australia and England at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. When the first three days of the third Test were washed out officials decided to abandon the match and, instead, play a one-off one day game consisting of 40 eight-ball overs per side. Australia won the game by 5 wickets.

In the late 1970s, Kerry Packer established the rival World Series Cricket competition, and it introduced many of the features of One-Day International cricket that are now commonplace, including coloured uniforms, matches played at night under floodlights with a white ball and dark sight screens, and, for television broadcasts, multiple camera angles, effects microphones to capture sounds from the players on the pitch, and on-screen graphics. The first of the matches with coloured uniforms was the WSC Australians in wattle gold versus WSC West Indians in coral pink, played at VFL Park in Melbourne on 17th January 1979.

Rules

In the main the Laws of cricket apply. However, in ODIs, each team gets to bat only a fixed number of overs. In the early days of ODI cricket, the number of overs was generally 60 overs per side but now it has been uniformly fixed at 50 overs.

Simply stated the game works as follows:

• An ODI is contested by 2 teams of 11 players each.
• The Captain of the side winning the toss chooses to either bat or bowl (field) first.
• The team batting first sets the target score in a single innings. The innings lasts until the batting side is "all out" (i.e., 10 of the 11 batting players are "out") or all of the first side's allotted overs are used up.
• Each bowler is restricted to bowling a maximum of 10 overs (fewer in the case of rain-reduced matches and in any event generally no more than one fifth or 20% of the total overs per innings).
• The team batting second tries to score more than the target score in order to win the match. Similarly, the side bowling second tries to bowl out the second team for less than the target score in order to win.
• If the number of runs scored by both teams are equal when the second team loses all of its wickets or exhausts all its overs, then the game is declared as a 'tie' (regardless of the number of wickets lost by either team).

Where a number of overs are lost, for example, due to inclement weather conditions, then the number of overs may be reduced. Where the number of overs available for the team batting second is perforce different from the number of overs faced by the team that batted first, the result may be determined by the Duckworth-Lewis method.

The bowling team is subject to fielding restrictions stipulating that nine fielders, including two fielders in catching positions, must be inside the fielding circle for a set number of overs. Traditionally, the fielding restrictions applied for the first 15 overs of each innings.

Trial regulations

After a trial period in New Zealand it was decided that Day/Night games would become part of an ODI tournament

The floodlights would be positioned in such a way that it would not interfere with fielding teams and captains would be allowed a cloth on field should the ball become moist.

In a 10 month trial period starting July 30, 2005, the ICC introduced the Powerplays rule as part of a series of new ODI regulations. Under the Powerplays rule, fielding restrictions apply for the first 10 overs, plus two blocks of five overs (called Powerplay Fives) to be used at the fielding side's discretion. In a powerplay, no more than two fielders can be positioned outside 30 yard circle. In the first 10 overs, it is also required that at least two fielders are in close catching positions.

The trial regulations also introduced a substitution rule that allowed the introduction of a replacement player at any stage in the match. Teams nominated their replacement player, called a Supersub, before the toss. The Supersub could bat, bowl, field or keep wicket; the replaced player took no further part in the game. Over the six months it was in operation, it became very clear that the Supersub was of far more benefit to the side that won the toss, unbalancing the game. Several international captains reached "gentleman's agreements" to discontinue this rule late in 2005. They continued to name supersubs, as required, but simply did not field them. On February 15, 2006, the ICC announced their intention to discontinue the Supersub rule on March 21, 2006.

The ICC have announced, as of 1 October 2007, with regard to Powerplays, that the captain of the fielding side may elect to position 3 fielders outside the 30 yard circle in one of the two 5-over Powerplays. The rule was first invoked in a match between Sri Lanka and England at Dambullah Stadium on 1 October 2007. Sri Lanka won the match by 119 runs.

Teams with ODI status

The International Cricket Council (ICC) determines which teams have ODI status (meaning that any match played between two such teams under standard one-day rules is classified as an ODI).

The ten Test-playing nations (which are also the ten full members of the ICC) have permanent ODI status. The nations are listed below with the date of each nation's ODI debut shown in brackets:

1. England (5th January, 1971)
2. Australia (5th January, 1971)
3. New Zealand (11th February, 1973)
4. Pakistan (11th February, 1973)
5. West Indies (5th September, 1973)
6. India (13th July, 1974)
7. Sri Lanka (7th June, 1975)
8. Zimbabwe (9th June, 1983)
9. Bangladesh (31st March, 1986)
10. South Africa (10th November, 1991)

The ICC temporarily grants ODI status to other teams; at present these are?

• Kenya (from 18th February, 1996, until the 2009 ICC Trophy)
• Bermuda (from 1st January, 2006 until the 2009 ICC Trophy)
• Canada (from 1st January, 2006 until the 2009 ICC Trophy)
• Ireland (from 1st January, 2006 until the 2009 ICC Trophy)
• Netherlands (from 1st January, 2006 until the 2009 ICC Trophy)
• Scotland (from 1st January, 2006 until the 2009 ICC Trophy)

Aside from Kenya, these teams earned this status as a result of their performance at the 2005 ICC Trophy. It is presumed that the ICC will follow this precedent in 2009 and use that year's ICC Trophy tournament results to award ODI status for the following years.

At one point, the ICC occasionally granted associate members permanent ODI status without granting them full membership and Test status. This was originally introduced to allow the best associate members to gain regular experience in internationals before making the step up to full membership. First Bangladesh and then Kenya received this status. Bangladesh have since made the step up to Test status and full membership; but as a result of Kenya's poor performance the ICC have since decided to end their permanent ODI status. Once this expires (in 2009) permanent ODI status will once again be coterminous with Test status.

In addition, the ICC reserves the right to grant special ODI status to all matches within certain high profile tournaments, with the result being that the following countries have also participated in full ODIs:

• East Africa (from 7th June, 1975 until 14th June, 1975)
• United Arab Emirates (from 13th April, 1994 until 17th April, 1994); (from 16th February, 1996 until 1st March, 1996) and (from 16th July, 2004 until 17th July, 2004)
• Namibia (from 10th February, 2003 until 3rd March, 2003)
• Hong Kong (from 16th July, 2004 until 18th July, 2004)
• USA (from 10th September, 2004 until 13th September, 2004)

In 2005 the ICC controversially gave ODI status, for the first time, to several matches involving teams composed of players from more than one country. These were the Asia XI vs ICC World XI game played in January 2005 as part of the World Cricket Tsunami Appeal in aid of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami relief effort and three commercially sponsored "Australia vs ICC World XI" ICC Super Series games which took place in Melbourne in October 2005. The latter matches were poorly attended and generated little interest in the cricketing world. It was an experiment which many feel should not be repeated and many cricket statisticians (e.g. Bill Frindall) agree that the matches should not be incorporated into the official ODI records.

Players who have played for more than one team

As there are residency and/or nationality requirements that need to be met to represent a team at international level, usually a player will only represent one team in ODIs in his career. Several have, however, played for more than one team. These include:[1]

• Kepler Wessels (Australia and South Africa) Tests and One-Day Internationals
• Clayton Lambert (West Indies and United States of America)
• Dougie Brown (England and Scotland)
• Anderson Cummins (West Indies and Canada)

Additionally, John Traicos played Tests for South Africa and Zimbabwe, but ODIs just for Zimbabwe, and Gavin Hamilton has only played ODIs for Scotland and represented England in one Test match.

One-Day International records

The record for the highest innings total in any List A limited overs match is 443 for nine by Sri Lanka against Netherlands in their One Day International 50-overs match at Amstelveen on July 4th, 2006. The lowest team total is 35 all out by Zimbabwe against Sri Lanka in Harare, 2004.

The most runs scored by both sides in any List A limited overs match is 872: Australia, batting first, scored 434 for four in 50 overs, and yet were beaten by South Africa who scored 438 for nine with a ball to spare during their One-Day International at Johannesburg in 2006.

The highest individual innings is 194 by Saeed Anwar for Pakistan against India in Chennai, 1996-97 when he surpassed Viv Richards' 189 against England in 1984. The best bowling figures are 8-19 by Chaminda Vaas for Sri Lanka v Zimbabwe in Colombo, 2001-02 - he is the only player to take eight wickets in a One Day international.

See also

• ICC ODI Championship
• Limited overs cricket
• One-Day International records
• One-Day International tournaments
• One-Day International hat-tricks

References

• NatWest International One Day Series
• International Cricket Rules and Regulations at the ICC website
• ICC Chief Executives' Committee approves introduction of ODI innovations by Jon Long, ICC website, June 25, 2005, retrieved November 25, 2005
• "ODI changes to take effect in NatWest Challenge" by Cricinfo staff, Cricinfo, June 30, 2005, retrieved November 25, 2005
• "Those new one-day rules explained" by Cricinfo staff, Cricinfo, July 8, 2005, retrieved November 25, 2005
• "The expanding one-day world" by Martin Williamson, CricInfo, January 6, 2006

Forms of cricket
International: Test cricket | One-Day International | Twenty20 | Hong Kong International Cricket Sixes | Women's cricket
Other: First-class cricket | Limited overs cricket | List A cricket | Club cricket
Variations: Indoor cricket | French cricket | Backyard cricket | Kwik cricket | Catchy Shubby Cricket | Blind cricket | Kilikiti | Short form cricket | Gilli-danda