Power play rule in one day cricket

Powerplay in one day cricket has been confusing fans around the world ever since it was first introduced in 2005 but 1 October 2011 onwards, few more clauses have been added to spice up ODI format. here's how the new power play rule stands..

An ODI has two innings, of 50 over each, in which first 10 overs are mandatory field restricted which means no more than 2 fielders can be outside the 30 yard circle and also, two fielders HAVE to be at catching positions.

Two blocks of 5 overs are known as batting powerplay and bowling powerplay, opted by batting and fielding side respectively. Once called for, no more than 3 fielders will be outside 30 yard circle but this time, no catching fielder is required although fielding captain may well choose to.

Note that if there's no power play in progress, maximum of 5 fielders can patrol the boundary in one day internationals.

Now, what was happening in first 6 years since this rule came into picture is that captains were not experimenting enough. Fielding sides were calling their bowling powerplays straight after first 10 overs to limit the damage in case batting side if off to flying start and batting side often called their batting powerplay as late as possible so that they can collect more runs freely.

October 2011 onwards, ICC has twicked the rule a bit by forcing captains to call batting and bowling powerplays inside 16th to 40th over. This means once first 10 overs of mandatory field restriction is over, bowling side can't call for PP. If they want to, they'll have to wait till completion of 15th over. On other hand, batting side will have to call batting PP on or before 36th over. This means overs 11th to 15 and 40th to 50th cannot be under powerplays!