ICC World Cup 2023: 'I won't watch ODI cricket for 8 hours,' says New Zealand great

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The ongoing ICC World Cup 2023 has been a hit and miss so far with only the big matches, mostly the hosts India games, are seeing a strong crowd presence while the neutral games are struggling to fill the stadia across the 10 venues despite the craze for the game in the nation.

New Zealand pace legend Shane Bond reckoned that he understands why fans are not making it to the stadium as he himself finds it too hard to sit and watch a match that is played over eight hours. The 48-year-old retired pacer, who took 147 ODI wickets in 82 matches, felt that's why T20 has been so successful.

"I think I am always interested, it's the first thing I do in the morning is to check the score since it's the World Cup but would I watch it, I think no," Shane Bond said on ESPN Cricinfo. "I am always interested but I won't watch it the whole day because it's very long. That's the beauty of T20 cricket and that's why people love it because we see more upsets, it's a good format for the smaller teams."

Shane Bond gave the example of Wednesday's ICC World Cup 2023 South Africa vs Bangladesh match, which he felt was dragged on for two hours to watch Mahmadullah hit an inconsequential century while South Africa thrashed Bangladesh by 149 runs at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.

"In T20 cricket, if a game is one-sided then it will only last for two and a half hours and doesn't go on for eight hours. Yesterday's game was over in 70 overs but we had to go through a process of another 20 overs to watch because somebody (Mahmadullah) was knocking a century. It's good for the player but not for the viewers," said Bond.

The former Kiwi cricketer admitted that he still loves ODI cricket as it's an exponent for some of the great cricketers to show the best of their calibre but at the end of the day the format will only last if fans are still interested.

"I still love 50-over cricket, we get to see some amazing skills on display, particularly from batting but in the end fans will decide whether they want to watch it or not. And that will be decided through viewership and how many people come to the stadium and if people are not interested to watch then you have to do something," said Bond.