- July 4, 2025
Try to picture it. A cricketer who is right at the top of his game, and you are playing in another bilateral ODI series that feels more like a formality than anything else. Imagine being a cricket fan trying to recall who won their last random three-match series: Sri Lanka and New Zealand. Any guesses? Good luck with that. You’re not the only one.
Heinrich Klaasen, South Africa’s white-ball wizard and now not an international cricketer, has just confirmed the quiet part out loud: let’s get bilateral ODIs taken off the international calendar. It’s hard to disagree with him.
Klaasen’s Case: Decluttering the Overloaded Calendar
With T20 leagues, multi-format tours, and ICC Events everywhere, bilateral ODIs feel like a trivial episode in a Netflix series that you don’t care about. Klaasen? Sure, keep the World Cup, get rid of the uninspiring bilateral ODIs around it, and his rationale was refreshingly sound: ODIs clutter the schedule, underwhelm the players, and are not the fans’ choice over T20s or Tests.
His idea of scheduling a pre-World Cup window with a few ODIs for teams to prepare is clever – it keeps the sanctity of ODIs’ premier competition intact whilst squashing some of the excess. Let’s be frank, aside from the World Cup, we already know that most bilateral ODIs often resemble glorified net sessions accompanied by broadcast agreements.
Franchise Fatigue vs National Duty: Where’s the Balance?
Klaasen isn’t complaining from behind a desk as a spectator; he’s been a participant. From SA20 to the IPL, MLC, The Hundred, and everything in between, Klaasen’s calendar has been full of flights, gym sessions, and more flights. By the time he got to Major League Cricket for the first time last year, he had nothing left—mentally or physically—and yet, as he said, he showed up, because that is what was required of him.
What is particularly intriguing is how franchise cricket, while heavy, allows players more flexibility and remuneration than national duty does, particularly in countries like South Africa, where central contracts are unequal to league salaries. Klaasen’s biggest worry? Players aren’t necessarily going to keep walking away from formats—or sometimes countries—if ICC and boards like CSA don’t adapt.
A Future Without Bilateral ODIs?
This isn’t only a Klaasen issue; it’s a cricket issue. The next-gen player doesn’t idolize a 50-over 100 at Colombo anymore. They idolize lighting up the IPL or 100 off 40 in the SA20. The game is changing, and so must the calendar.
If the ICC wants to keep international cricket sustainable and relevant, particularly for boards under financial duress, perhaps it should consider three meaningful Tests, T20s that fans care about, and a pared-down, high-stakes ODI World Cup cycle.
Klaasen’s call might sound radical, but it is the same thought that many players and fans have been considering for a long time. Perhaps it is time to break free from the grief of nostalgia and start building cricket around real value: quality over quantity.
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