5th ODI: Australia v Pakistan at Adelaide on Jan 26, 2017

[undertaker]

27929 the official crowd attendance yesterday. Very disappointing, but expected given the game was a dead rubber. With the exception of the Warner/Head opening partnership, the atmosphere for the rest of the game felt very stale.

Yet another reason why I would love to see these useless 5/7 ODI bilateral series scrapped and bring back the tri-series format. Very hard to promote a game that was a dead rubber in a bilateral series (even if it was on a public holiday), however the match would've had more meaning if it was one of the two teams battling for a spot in a tri-series final.

Sadly, CA believe the tri-series format is relevant only for T20, which will be the case next summer when Australia/England/NZ will partake in the first ever T20 international tri-series.

 

[hineyrulz]

27929 the official crowd attendance yesterday. Very disappointing, but expected given the game was a dead rubber. With the exception of the Warner/Head opening partnership, the atmosphere for the rest of the game felt very stale.

Yet another reason why I would love to see these useless 5/7 ODI bilateral series scrapped and bring back the tri-series format. Very hard to promote a game that was a dead rubber in a bilateral series (even if it was on a public holiday), however the match would've had more meaning if it was one of the two teams battling for a spot in a tri-series final.

Sadly, CA believe the tri-series format is relevant only for T20, which will be the case next summer when Australia/England/NZ will partake in the first ever T20 international tri-series.

More 20/20??? Just dandy

 

[TheParraboy]

27929 the official crowd attendance yesterday. Very disappointing, but expected given the game was a dead rubber. With the exception of the Warner/Head opening partnership, the atmosphere for the rest of the game felt very stale.

Yet another reason why I would love to see these useless 5/7 ODI bilateral series scrapped and bring back the tri-series format. Very hard to promote a game that was a dead rubber in a bilateral series (even if it was on a public holiday), however the match would've had more meaning if it was one of the two teams battling for a spot in a tri-series final.

Sadly, CA believe the tri-series format is relevant only for T20, which will be the case next summer when Australia/England/NZ will partake in the first ever T20 international tri-series.

You also had dead rubbers in the tri-series at times, plus Australia didn't qualify for the finals a few times either. Kinda like when your footy team doesn't make the playoffs, might still watch it, but its not the same. Along with the BBL becoming a marquee tournament the tri series is pretty much dead as a year in year out fixture.

Im not against bringing back the tri-series, but maybe every 3rd year? Where each side plays each other twice only. You would have to be smart who you brought over as the other two sides. Strong sides or sides that have a following here. Pakistan v India ODI match dead rubber or not would draw a huge crowd particularly in Adelaide, Sydney and the MCG.

 

[undertaker]

You also had dead rubbers in the tri-series at times, plus Australia didn't qualify for the finals a few times either. Kinda like when your footy team doesn't make the playoffs, might still watch it, but its not the same. Along with the BBL becoming a marquee tournament the tri series is pretty much dead as a year in year out fixture.

Im not against bringing back the tri-series, but maybe every 3rd year? Where each side plays each other twice only. You would have to be smart who you brought over as the other two sides. Strong sides or sides that have a following here. Pakistan v India ODI match dead rubber or not would draw a huge crowd particularly in Adelaide, Sydney and the MCG.

Dead rubbers in the final matches of the preliminary rounds of the tri-series were rare. Most times, there were two of the three teams that were still in contention for the other finals spot. 2001/02 was the closest, where all teams finished with a 4W-4L record, but the bonus point ended up being the difference (as well as NZ deliberately tanking to South Africa in the penultimate match.) Australia only failed to make the finals 3 times during the tri-series format before it was scrapped in 2007/08 (with the rare one-offs, such as in 2011/12 and 2014/15, only because they involved India).

These 5-7 game bilateral ODI series in Australia just haven't done it for me since they replaced the tri-series in 2008/09. The last two overseas tri-series Australia have been involved in (in the West Indies and Zimbabwe) have been a breath of fresh air. Even the summers where Australia completely dominated (e.g. 2000/01), it was always interesting to see which overseas team would play them in the finals and many of the neutral matches turned out to be classics and still stand out many years later (West Indies vs Zimbabwe at SCG 2001, South Africa vs New Zealand at the Gabba and Hobart 1997/98, England vs Sri Lanka at Adelaide 1999), but by 2007/08, Ch9 weren't interested and passing the India vs Sri Lanka game to Fox Sports in 2008 sealed the tri-series fate.

I would love to see the tri-series reintroduced, albeit in a reduced format. Previous structure was 12 games (8 games per team) during the preliminary rounds. 6 games (4 games per team) is too short. 9 games (6 games per team) would be my ideal during the preliminary rounds. It's a shame the last time Pakistan and India were both in the tri-series was in 1999/00, when India was still a team slowly on the rise during the Ganguly era. If they played a India vs Pakistan ODI at the MCG tomorrow, they'd get a big crowd. Would've easily got 90k+ during the 2015 WC.