Australia batter Usman Khawaja feels that ODI cricket is "dying a slow death" and added that he was not surprised over all-rounder Ben Stokes, England's Test skipper, calling it quits from the 50-over game, citing "unsustainable" workload of playing all formats in international cricket.
"My own personal opinion - I know a few of the guys are very similar - 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."
"I feel like that's probably the third-ranked out of all of them. I think personally one-day cricket is dying a slow death...there's still the World Cup, which I think is really fun and it's enjoyable to watch, but other than that, even myself personally, I'm probably not into one-day cricket as much either," said Khawaja to media persons in Brisbane.
Khawaja, who last played an ODI for Australia since the 2019 Men's Cricket World Cup, believes that 50-over matches are of very little importance due to the Men's T20 World Cup happening in October-November in the country.
Before defending their T20 World Cup title at home, Australia are scheduled to play three ODIs each against Zimbabwe and New Zealand in Townsville and Cairns respectively. They will then fly to India for a short, three-match T20I series before facing West Indies in two T20Is and England in three T20Is at home, as part of preparation for the 2022 Men's T20 World Cup.
"Right now it (ODIs) feels like it's not really that important because of the T20 World Cup. Something has to give, because you can't have all three formats all together playing all the games; you're going to have to decide and choose.
I don't know how it's going to go. I think T20 cricket's here to stay definitely, Test cricket's here to stay definitely. But what happens to one-day cricket?"Khawaja, who has been in the Test side since making a stellar comeback by notching up twin centuries in fourth Ashes Test at Sydney, admitted that it wouldn't be easy for a cricketer to play all three formats of the game.
"Not impossible, (but) very tough. So much travelling. If you're playing all three forms of the game, you're not at home at all really. And then the demands on your body, mentally, physically and a lot of the guys might be playing also the IPL.
There's a lot of cricket going on. Yes, you get to pick and choose, I guess, in certain respects what you want to play but look, it can be very tough at the moment."