One-day cricket is dying a slow death, exclaims Usman Khawaja

The death toll of one-day cricket seems to be getting louder and louder with each passing day as a growing number of cricketers have been voicing their criticism of the present state of One Day Internationals. Cricket buff Ravichandran Ashwin recently denounced the format as ‘irrelevant’, while the game’s favourite son Ben Stokes retired from ODIs at the raw age of 31.

The 35-year-old has represented Australia in 40 ODIs since his debut nine years ago, having last played in the format against the Proteas in 2019.

Of late, the international calendar has been lined up with one T20 after another, given the two T20 World Cups within the space of a year. While the 2021 edition was clinched by Australia, they’ll now be playing hosts to the 2022 edition set to begin in less than three months.

The Pakistan-born Australian recently got a new lease of life in international cricket following a successful comeback Ashes series earlier in the year. Khawaja has once again become a mainstay in the team as an opener in Tests and feels the red-ball format remains at the top.

"You've got Test cricket, which is the pinnacle, you've got T20 cricket which obviously has leagues around the world, great entertainment, everyone loves it, and then there's one-day cricket, and I feel like that's probably the third ranked out of all of them," he said.

"Not impossible, very tough. So much travelling. If you're playing all three forms of the game, you're not at home at all really," the opener concluded.