Hi everyone.
I joined your forum to try to find the answer to this question: Why are the warm up games being shown on cricinfo as some sort of unofficial cricket match, and not a one day international?
Surely a 50 over match between test playing nations with world class umpires should be an ODI, especially if the players i'm hoping do well make a big score.

Hope someone can explain this. Thanks.

I am not sure that they are unofficial. Sure, the results don't count towards the World Cup itself, but any records made should be good enough for the books? After all, in 'friendly' international soccer matches, the goals scored count towards the player's tally, don't they?

I'm going by the cricinfo scorecards, which normally have "one day international number****" at the top. Also, none of the results have been added to the individual players stats at this stage.
I agree with you, they should be official, if i was some unheard of guy from Namibia or something and made a ton, i'd sure want them to be.

Ray - you're right: these are not official games and, as far as I know, personal records for ODIs will not be updated for these warm up events. The reason is that the games are not even played according to the Laws of Cricket. Take a look at the card for South Africa v Ireland yesterday, for example, and you will see that it was a 13-a-side event (only eleven allowed to bat, however). This is commonplace these days - intended to give the whole squad a run out in as few warm-ups as possible. I don't like it all that much, but cricket it's not - that starts when the competition opens next week.

Welcome to the board, by the way: hope you'll stick around to talk about the real action once it gets started.

__________________
Money won't buy you friends. But it gets you a better class of enemy.
Spike Milligan

OF is correct as usual; these games are not official ODIs. So someone like Afridi, who is banned for his next three ODI games, is of course eligible to play these warm-ups as they are no more than glorified net sessions.

The results and performances in these games, as far as I know, do not count towards a player's ODI or first-class statistics, as these are 13-a-side warm-up games where 11 bat and 11 field at any one time.

In all honesty, I agree with the ICC. Organising official ODIs one week before the World Cup starts, between teams who would quite possibly face each other in crucial Super Eight games, would have been rather silly, as it would have devalued the competition.

You flatter me, Maranello. I am sure I am occasionally wrong - just give me a while to think when.

Your point on having ODIs immediately before an ODI championship is well taken. What I meant was that I don't much like these rugby teams taking to the cricket field (especially rugby league, as in this case!). But I can see why coaches, captains and players would like it, namely to get as many people exposed to a competitive environment in an unfamiliar location as possible. And it's a well embedded habit these days, so I shall have to get used to it on the one hand and ignore it on the other. (That said, I didn't even pick up on the 13-a-side thing until Richard Jenkins mentioned it earlier in the "Warm Up Games" thread.)

__________________
Money won't buy you friends. But it gets you a better class of enemy.
Spike Milligan

thanks guys.

England did the same thing at the start of the Ashes for their match against NSW, so it wasn't a 1st class match.

I really dont know why they need the matches at all, when so many teams have just finished other tournaments anyway. Anyhoo, like you said, roll on the real stuff.

I think these Warm ups are important for the minnows. Take a look at yesterdays match of NZ vs Bang, Bangladesh won a closely contested match. Bangladesh have been on the fringes of ODI cricket for a couple of years now and this was a major boost for them. It also gives the major teams a chance to test all their different bowlers out to determine which to use in the proper games. So being unofficial is a boost in itself... all teams can really experiment and go for it rather than having to stick to specific formats to maintain records.

__________________