One-day international cricket was invented because of rain
In January 1971 the first three days of a Test between Australia and England in Melbourne were washed out. Rather than send everyone home, officials abandoned the Test and staged a single-day match of 40 eight-ball overs per side. Australia won by five wickets, and a new format was born.
That improvised game on 5 January 1971 became the first One Day International. Early matches used white clothing and a red ball, and the length varied from 40 to 60 overs a side until it settled at 50 in the mid-1990s. A game now lasts up to seven hours, and the World Cup, usually held every four years, is played in this format.
Much of what now looks standard came from a rebel competition. In the late 1970s the businessman Kerry Packer launched World Series Cricket, which introduced coloured uniforms, floodlit evening games using a white ball against black sight screens, and television touches such as multiple camera angles, stump microphones and on-screen graphics.
The rules are straightforward. Two teams of 11 take turns batting for a single innings, which ends when ten batters are out or the overs run out. The side batting second chases the target, and equal scores produce a tie regardless of wickets lost. No bowler may deliver more than 10 overs, generally a fifth of the innings, so every team needs at least five capable bowlers.
Weather has always been the awkward part. The first fix, deciding shortened matches on run rate, favoured the chasing side; a 1992 World Cup method that discarded the first team's weakest overs tilted things the other way, and a newer system has been used since the late 1990s. The white ball caused its own headaches, getting scuffed and hard to see, so the ICC switched to using two new balls, one from each end. From June 2025 the fielding side can choose one of the two to keep after the 34th over, a change meant to revive reverse swing and even the contest between bat and ball.
Source: One Day International
