A test of the one-day format's popularity

One-day international cricket in India is an anomaly. While the world - including players like Ricky Ponting and Sachin Tendulkar - seems sated with the 50-over game, especially with meaningless seven-match bilateral series, the upcoming contest between India and Australia is likely to be received well by the home audience. Three-odd commercials squeezed in after each over works well for the broadcasters, international cricket in smaller centres works well for the public there.

Over the next three weeks, though, we will know if times are changing in India as they are in the rest of the world. The Champions League Twenty20, with its largely thin crowds, will have just finished when the two top-ranked teams start their series - only ODIs, no Tests nor Twenty20s. Three Australian players, representing New South Wales in the Champions League, will reach Vadodara on Saturday afternoon, having finished their final late Friday night and travelled about 1100 km north-west, and start a match at 9.00 am on Sunday. That could have been the fate of three more Australians, had Victoria won their semi-final, or of a couple of Indians had one of the IPL teams made it that far.

It's not just the players, of course, who are threatened by fatigue. Will cricket's biggest and most consistent market show signs it has had enough? Will the seemingly insatiable public turn its back on a calendar fast becoming a blur? If so, it will never have been more justified in its reaction given the manner in which one tournament now merges seamlessly into another without a thought for the importance some of them deserve.

It's a disturbing backdrop to a series that is effectively a tussle for top spot on the ICC rankings - especially when the two sides have spent the last two years playing hard, exciting cricket while building up a keen rivalry. When Australia came to India for four Tests last year there was both time and previous for the fans to slowly build up to the series. Then again the Indian cricket fan is a confounding creature: Mohali and Nagpur drew abysmal crowds and Delhi's public turned up only when it was clear they would be witnessing Anil Kumble's farewell. Perhaps the build-up doesn't matter here, but it could be tempting fate to start a seven-match contest 33 hours after the Champions League ends.

Surely, though, this will not mirror the drab series Australia went through in England. Surely, once the matches start, sub-plots will emerge. Brett Lee, Mitchell Johnson and Peter Siddle will bowl bouncers to Suresh Raina and Virat Kohli. Harbhajan Singh, up against his favourite opponents, will look for redemption after a poor personal Champions Trophy - itself an aberration for a bowler much improved after Anil Kumble's retirement. Ishant Sharma, who tormented Ricky Ponting enough to find a mention in his book as one of the more exciting contests he has been through, will now be targeted and will have to show what stuff he is made of. He is struggling in the shorter versions, he is low on confidence, and he doesn't have a bowling coach.

Shaun Marsh, after that blockbuster IPL and the subsequent injury, will get a decent run in national colours, an opportunity rightfully his after Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist retired. Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh will make their comebacks, and that is as good a reason as any to watch the games. Shane Watson again is on the verge of realising his true potential at international level. At some time during the series, Sachin Tendulkar will finish 20 years in international cricket. Amid all that, what fun it would be if the unheralded players - Doug Bollinger, Ben Hilfenhaus, Jon Holland, Sudeep Tyagi - prove to be the difference.

It helps that there are no favourites going into the series. India's batting looks much better with Sehwag and Yuvraj back, and the familiar lower pitches on offer. The fast bowling, in Zaheer Khan's absence, will be scrutinised again; the fielding will remain the area that Australia will look to capitalise on.

Michael Clarke's absence will mean Ponting and Michael Hussey will have extra responsibility in the middle order. That apart, Australia will seek a continuation of their ODI turnaround after the losses to South Africa home and away. They have now beaten Pakistan and England in bilateral series and have defended their Champions Trophy undefeated, winning 14 out of their last 17 matches. But the conditions will test them and the Indian batsmen will be the toughest to contain among their recent opposition.

Both teams, in different ways, are in transitional phases. Both teams can claim to have been the best ODI team over the past two years. If they can sufficiently engage the crowds over the next three weeks, despite the overdose of cricket that precedes it, a fresh debate on the feasibility of ODIs will need to be started.