Edwards goes into bat for 50-over rebranding
One-day cricket will be rebadged as World Cup Cricket if Wally Edwards has his way.
Cricket Australia's chairman has proposed that the 50-over game be renamed to take advantage of its World Cup status and further differentiate it from the barnstorming Twenty20 version.
Writing exclusively for _The Weekend West _, Edwards revealed he had proposed the makeover to the International Cricket Council.
"I have argued at the ICC table that we might do well to rebadge 50-over cricket as World Cup Cricket to emphasise where the ultimate 50-over cricket success lies," Edwards said.
"One-day cricket, when played in a manner that encourages players to play their shots and to try to take wickets instead of pushing singles to deep fields for half of the match, is exciting to watch and to play."
Edwards, the former West Australian and Test opener, is one of the most powerful figures in the sport given Australia, India and England now effectively run the ICC.
The best evidence of the trio's power to make dramatic changes to the game was underlined last year with the crackdown on chuckers.
Several stars, including Pakistan's Saeed Ajmal and West Indian Sunil Narine, were rubbed out as the world's governing body acted firmly on illegal bowling for the first time in more than a decade.
That move is understood to have been driven personally by Indian powerbroker Narayan Srinivasan, who alongside Edwards and England's Giles Clarke, controls the ICC's key port- folios. Edwards said the World Cup, which starts today, would have a powerful and positive impact on the game in this country.
He had few doubts that 50-over cricket remained relevant, despite the popularity of T20 and the lucrative global club leagues, and continued to prove the financial lifeblood of the game.
"Hosting the ICC World Cup means a lot to Australian cricket, including a financial dividend from ticket sales that will help us reinvest in the Australian game's future," Edwards said.
"The two big things it means to me are reinforcement of 50-over cricket as an amazingly popular global format, and the bringing together of people of diverse backgrounds in their common love of cricket.
"We are about to see this refreshed format excite huge crowds at the 14 venues around Australia and New Zealand, we could see a million people through the gates of Australian games, and the TV audience is going to top one billion people."
Edwards finishes his term as CA chairman in October, bringing to an end an administrative career that started more than 40 years ago when, as a student, he was University's delegate to the WACA.
"Little did I know in my fairly carefree 20s that I would one day unbuckle the pads and become a club, then State, then national and most recently international cricket administrator," he said.
"It would be great, 40 years after that first ICC World Cup, to walk out of my final meeting at Cricket Australia in Melbourne past a new world championship World Cup trophy."
