Sports correspondent & historian with Sideline Sid

A NZC Ford Trophy One-Day game at the Bay Oval on Sunday, completed a showcase of all three forms of the game at Blake Park since the start of January 2024.

The NZC Major Association encounter, in which Canterbury gave Northern Districts a cricket lesson in winning by eight wickets, was played before a crowd outnumbered by the seagulls.

Before the start of the new millennium, the one-day encounters at the old Blake Park wicket would draw crowds in their thousands during the holiday season.

Since early January, T20 Internationals versus Bangladesh and NZC Super Smash along with the test match versus South Africa, have held centre stage at the Bay Oval.

The meager crowd at the Ford Trophy fixture on Sunday, highlights the changes to the great game of cricket over the years.

Test match cricket played over several days dates back to 1887, with the first test between Australia and England played in Melbourne.

One-Day Internationals came about in 1971 when the first three days of the Ashes test in Melbourne was rained out - and a one-day match was staged between the two test sides to provide some cricket for the ticket holders.

The 50 overs per side matches, then grabbed cricket fans attention, especially after the arrival of Kerry Packer’s World Series of Cricket in the late 1970s.

Packer’s cricket circus, of floodlight cricket with the accompanying white balls, coloured uniforms and plenty of loud music, dramatically changed the game.

During the 1980s and 1990s, one-day fans flocked in their thousands to tri-nation series and domestic competitions, while cynics were predicting the death of the test match game.

The decision of the England and Wales Cricket Board to introduce T20 inter-county contests in 2003 turned the traditions of the game on its head.

Just as Packer’s WSC had changed the cricket landscape three decades before, the T20 format shook up the cricket world.

In today's world, people are time poor, with three hours of T20 smash and bash, providing little more time involvement than a rugby match and supporting curtain raiser.

The aggressive components of T20 have transformed the longer forms of the game. Reverse sweeps and ramp shots along with fierce defence of the boundary, have been transferred to one-day and test cricket.

There is no bigger example of the T20 influences than the so-called Baz-ball implemented by England's, Kiwi coach, Brendan McCallum.

Baz-ball is used to describe a style of play marked by a commitment to quick scoring and risk taking.

This philosophy has split apart the traditionalists and the new-age fans views on cricket.

When it works, it is spectacular in the extreme but can also produce some very one-sided contests.

For mine, test cricket provides up to five days of intrigue with twists and turns that can light up a match in a moment, interspersed with long periods of building match foundations.

I believe that the future of the international game, lies with test match cricket supported by T20 cricket, with the ICC Cricket World Cup becoming the domain of the one-day game.