Bollinger backs meaningless ODIs
Feb 08 2010 - 12:50:28
Australia fast bowler Doug Bollinger insists there is no danger of one-day cricket becoming extinct in the foreseeable future despite disappointing crowd figures.
Just 24,463 people turned up to watch the first match of the one-day series against West Indies at the MCG on a sunny Sunday afternoon - less than half of the amount of people that were at the same venue on Friday night watching the Twenty20 international against Pakistan.
"A crowd's a crowd. It's been a great summer with the Pakistan series and we've had great crowds the whole time so it wasn't a bad thing. I'm just happy people came out and watched us," he said.
The crowd of 60,054 on Friday night was the biggest of the summer, eclipsing the Boxing Day Test, to clearly show which form of the game is the most popular with the public.
What makes the T20I crowd even more remarkable is that the game was played on a cool night after a rainy day and was in competition with the A-League match between Melbourne Victory and North Queensland at Etihad Stadium which attracted over 22,000 people.
But, despite the poor attendances, Bollinger remains confident in the 50-over format of the game and thinks people saying the game is close to dying is an overreaction.
He said: "I think it is (an overreaction) because people have got things to do and if they don't want to come to the cricket well we can't do much about that but we're glad we had so many people come out yesterday and really enjoy themselves.
"I think 50-over cricket's great. As I said we had a great series against Pakistan and we've only just started against the West Indies and I think coming to Adelaide tomorrow it's going to be a great game and I'm sure there'll be a big crowd there.
"I think 50-over cricket's a great game and it will be there for a long time."