Former England all-rounder Moeen Ali has come down heavily on the "terrible rules" favouring batters and leading to the "death" of the 50-over format with an increasing number of players opting to freelance in T20 leagues.
Moeen has played 138 ODIs for England, scoring 2,355 runs besides taking 111 wickets. He has also featured in 68 Tests in which he has scored more than 3000 runs and took 200 plus wickets. He retired from international cricket in September last year and will play for Kolkata Knight Riders in the upcoming IPL.
"The format has almost completely died out, apart from World Cups and Champions Trophy. It is the worst format to play and I think there are many reasons for that," Moeen told Talksport Cricket.
In the earlier times, after the first power play there used to be five fielders outside the circle but in the past few years, it has changed to four, which makes batting easier during the middle overs. Not only that, two new balls are used unlike earlier times which also makes stroke-making a lot easier.
"I think the rules are terrible. To have that extra fielder after (the first powerplay), I think it's a horrendous rule for taking wickets, building any sort of pressure. Guys are averaging 60, 70 in ODI cricket now because of that."
"When you're bowling at somebody and you put a little bit of pressure, he just reverse-sweeps and it's not even a single, it's a four. It's just there's always that option available for the batters (to score)." Using two new balls also mean lack of reverse swing.
"On top of all this, you have two new balls, you lose the reverse swing, you lose the art of trying to hit a softer ball. Everything's always in the middle and crisp and it's flying off your bat and stuff. I think for those reasons, the cricket's just died. 50-over cricket has died," Moeen continued.
Moeen warned that there are cricketers who would retire prematurely due to the money offered in T20 leagues.
"I think franchise cricket is sadly eating it all up and the problem is the money that's out there and the money that's being thrown out there. It's so much that people just can't turn it down. It's very difficult. There are probably guys who are probably going to retire in the next couple of years from international cricket to play franchise cricket," Moeen added.
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