The term One-Day International is more commonly used for the 50-over game, which unlike Test matches, gets completed in one-day. However, the game’s statisticians prefer to use the term ‘Limited Overs Internationals (LOI)’ to the One-dayers and Twenty20s.
If the current schedule announced by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for their ‘home’ series against Australia (in August and September 2012 in UAE) is approved by the Cricket Australia and their players’ association (ACA), the One-Day Internationals starting in the evening (6 pm) on August 28 (Sharjah), August 31 (Abu Dhabi) and Sept.3 (Dubai) will go beyond the mid-night next days and it will be a million dollar question whether they can be called as ODIs’?
Late Bill Frindall, the BBC Test Special team scorer and the statistician always used to call the Limited Overs Internationals (LOI) to the ODIs.
“I agree with the late Bill Frindall – Limited Over Internationals (LOIs) is the what ODIs should be called,” the world’s renowned Indian TV expert, Mohandas Menon echoed. “Since some ODI matches were played for two days in England when the first day was not sufficient to get a result, the best option is to call them LOI,” he added.
“Limited Overs International became more common in use following the introduction of T20 as it can apply to both formats, however, typically one-day internationals are not scheduled on consecutive days in case of rain delay, to allow the contest to be completed on the next day. I don’t know for sure if Frindall first coined the term LOI but certainly he has published books with that title,” Dave Wilson, the US-based cricket statistician said exclusively.
“Late finishes are more common since night cricket began (around 1997 in England), though not many matches extend past midnight – certainly 1.45am local time is the latest I am aware of,” he added.
Statisticians have different preferences in calling one-dayers
