No Significant Change In Number Of ODIs In Next FTP: ICC Chief

With the retirement of England's all-rounder, Ben Stokes from ODIs, the future of the 50-over format has been widely debated, and with the Future Tours Programme (FTP) for the upcoming cycle to be published within the coming days, one can speculate on how many 50-over matches will be present. However, ICC chief executive Geoff Allardice along with chairman Greg Barclay attended a video conference on Wednesday and made it clear that a healthy number of ODIs will be played in the upcoming FTP.

"We talked about the structure of the game, countries, and fans in those countries have different preferences in terms of formats. At this stage, there was some discussion, not specifically ODIs, but the mix of the formats in the calendar, but countries in their FTPs are scheduling a healthy number of ODIs as well. In the FTP, I do not think you will see any significant change in the number of ODIs or the proportion of ODIs being played," said Allardice during a video conference.

"Under our agreement with our members around ICC events, the availability to schedule quadrangular series is not available to members. But tri-series are, all I know at this point, they are not that easy to schedule, getting a number of countries in one place at one time, given the constraints in the calendar. I do not know how many tri-series are there in FTP, I just know that they are not that easy to schedule as they were in the times gone by," he added.

Recently South Africa pulled out of ODIs against Australia, scheduled to be played early next year, in order to focus on their domestic league. As a result, South Africa's direct qualification for the World Cup hangs in the balance.

When asked about domestic leagues' impact on international cricket,