The first official international cricket “Test” match was played between England and Australia in March 1887. In fact, this was a timeless match (there was no limited number of overs or days at that time). Can you believe it! There was no limitation of time so the match could go on forever. Cricket continued in this form for 50 years. The longest cricket match went on for 9 days and took place between England and South Africa in 1939! Guess what! The reason for the stoppage of play was because England had to take a boat back home! After this match, the cricketing world realised that timeless cricket should be banned and 6-day cricket matches should start (with 5 days of play and a “rest day”, which was usually a Sunday). However, they eventually changed it to 5 days of play with no rest days.

 

In January 1971, Australia and England were playing a Test series. However, in the third Test, the first three days were washed out by rain. Due to this, officials decided to abandon the Test match and instead, play a one-off one day game of 40 eight-ball overs per side. Australia eventually won the match by 5 wickets. Realising that time-bound limited overs cricket was more exciting,  a new format called One Day Internationals (ODIs) thus got invented. Currently, One Day Internationals are played as 50 6-ball overs per innings and the Cricket World Cups are played in this format, once every 4 years. So far, there have been 11 ODI World Cups.

 

After a while, even 50 over matches became boring with dwindling crowds and reduced sponsorship. Therefore, cricketing authorities started to look for a way to boost the game’s popularity. With an intention to deliver fast paced, exciting cricket, accessible to thousands of fans who were put off by the longer versions of the game, the first 20-over match was played in England between two English Counties in 2003. The first Twenty Twenty or T20 World Cup was played in 2007 and has been played every two years since then.

Now, all three formats of cricket - Tests, ODIs and T20s - happily co-exist.