India’s spin great Ravichandran Ashwin has cast doubt on the long-term future of ODI cricket, saying the T20 format is better placed to drive the game’s global growth. In his view, shorter matches are easier for wider audiences to follow and are essential if cricket wants to expand beyond its traditional strongholds.

Ashwin’s remarks come at an important time for the sport. Cricket is set to return to the Olympic Games at Los Angeles 2028 after a gap of 128 years, having last featured at the 1900 Paris Olympics. The International Cricket Council has already announced the qualification process, underlining how seriously the sport is taking its Olympic comeback.

Speaking on the issue, Ravichandran Ashwin said the shorter format will play a central role in cricket’s future if the game is to become truly global. “Look, I think there’s an Olympics that’s going to happen in a couple of years. And if cricket as a game is pretty serious about making it a global affair, the teams in this league will play a very crucial part in enabling that,” Ashwin was quoted as saying by PTI.

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He added that the focus should now be on improving T20 cricket, which he believes offers the best pathway for cricket’s expansion into new markets.

“Our job will be purely on T20 cricket and how it can get better. And if the game has to become global and it has to become an Olympic sport, the shorter the game, the more viable it is,” he said.

Ashwin, who is currently representing the San Francisco Unicorns in Major League Cricket in the United States, also pointed to the rise of franchise leagues as evidence that the shortest format has become the sport’s growth engine. According to him, T20 cricket can help create a broader and more diverse pool of players while keeping fans engaged throughout the year.

“And that’s how it’s going to become much bigger. And you will see a better sample size of players, which is also very critical for several of these leagues which run through the year. T20 as a sport is here to stay. I’m not too sure about ODI cricket,” Ravichandran Ashwin said.

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Ashwin is not alone in questioning the place of ODIs in modern cricket. The 50-over format has increasingly found itself squeezed between Test cricket’s traditional charm and T20’s commercial power, with bilateral ODI series often drawing less attention outside major ICC events. Former Australia captain Ian Chappell raised similar concerns in 2023, arguing that the decline of ODI cricket was accelerated by administrative choices, changing playing conditions and the sport’s growing reliance on T20’s financial appeal.