ODI Cricket Is The Worst Format To Play: Moeen Ali

In a brutal assessment of One Day International (ODI) cricket, former England all-rounder Moeen Ali branded it the ‘worst format to play’ and claimed that, outside of major events, 50-over cricket is as good as dead.

Moeen, who played in the 2023 ODI World Cup and hung up his boots from all international cricket in September 2024, pointed towards the extreme batter-friendly nature of the format and ‘terrible rules’ as major reasons for why ODI cricket is losing relevance. 

“The format has almost completely died out, apart from World Cups and Champions Trophy. It is the worst format to play and I think there's many reasons for that,” Moeen said on Talksport Cricket.

“I think the rules are terrible. Like, to have that extra fielder in after [the powerplay], I think it's a horrendous rule for taking wickets, building any sort of pressure.

“Guys are averaging 60, 70 in ODI cricket now because of that. Like, when you're bowling at somebody and you put a little bit of pressure, he just reverse-sweeps and it’s not even a single, it’s a four. It’s just there’s always that option available for the batters [to score].”

Moeen further reckoned that introduction of two new balls has also played its part in ODI cricket becoming a format that’s imbalanced, skewed too much in favour of the batters.

“On top of all this, you have two new balls, you lose the reverse swing, you lose the art of trying to hit a softer ball. Everything's always in the middle and crisp and it's flying off your bat and stuff. I think for those reasons, the cricket's just died. 50-over cricket has died,” Moeen said.

Overall, Moeen played 138 ODIs in his career, scoring 2,355 runs while taking 111 wickets.