There was a time when One Day International cricket was played in white dresses like we still see in the Test Cricket. One day cricket was colorless less excited it was same as like Test matches and ODI game was also played for 60 Over’s for quite a while.
The credit of making One Day International cricket colorful goes to Kerry Packer who changed the scenario of the ODI cricket. The first change came long back in late 70’s when One-Day Internationals played in colorful outfits. It happened on 28th November 1978 in Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket (WSC) in which WSC West Indies XI took on WSC Australia XI in the first ever day-night match.
It was the very first occasion when teams dressed in Colored Jersey swapping with the white one. Kerry Packer not only begin era of color dresses in ODI’s but he also initiated first day-night cricket match.
Who was Kerry Packer?
Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer (17 December 1937 – 26 December 2005) was an Australian media business person. The Packer family company owned a controlling interest in both the Nine television network and leading Australian publishing company Australian Consolidated Press, which were later merged to form Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL). Outside Australia, Packer was best known for founding World Series Cricket. At the time of his death, Packer was the richest and one of the most influential men in Australia.Packer was the first person to make money out of cricket by telecasting it in TV which created interest in people to watch cricket.
World Series Cricket (WSC)?
World Series Cricket (WSC) was a breakaway professional cricket competition staged between 1977 and 1979 and organised by Kerry Packer for his Australian television network, Nine Network. The matches ran in opposition to established international cricket. World Series Cricket drastically changed the nature of cricket, and its influence continues to be felt today.
Two main factors caused the formation of WSC—the widespread view that players were not paid sufficient amounts to make a living from cricket, and that Packer wished to secure the exclusive broadcasting rights to Australian cricket, then held by the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC).
For full details on Kerry Packer refer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerry_Packer
Australia was dressed up in gold costumes, while the WSC West Indians team to play wearing coral pink. The match took place at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Two other changes also seen i.e. red cricket ball was replaced with the white ball and black sight screen replacing the white ones. Moreover the record crowed was registered to see the history as nearly 50000 people adjusted themselves into the stadium to be a part of epic cricket match.
Australian team integrated dress changes in the 80’s; and tradition in the 90s. The major change came in the year 1992 World Cup when all the teams played World Cup 1992 wearing colored jerseys.
The Indian team ODI jerseys have gone through quite advancement. Started in Mid 80’s with light blue color and yellow stripes with no sponsor, brand name and even no team name on the jerseys isn’t it ludicrous? From them on wards the jersey had gone with numerous of changes some of them were really cool and some even we don’t want to see again.
