From time to time, someone will trigger a discussion on the future of Test cricket, or how T20 is going to be the sport. Now there is talk of Ten10.
It is always the administrators who talk about tweaking Test cricket to save money, rather than making it viable with innovations. The BCCI president Sourav Ganguly thinks day-night Tests is the answer and that’s why he was bent on having the recent Bangladesh Test under lights. That’s one solution.
Now the same administrators are keen on reducing Tests to a four-day affair, essentially to cut down on expenses. For them, an early finish on Day 5 is nothing but adding to the financial problems. Ironically, while the debate is on, the Cape Town Test went to the wire earlier this week, the decisive turn coming in the last hour.
In the last 20 years, a trend has crept in after India beat Australia after being asked to follow on in Kolkata in 2001. Captains don’t enforce follow-on even with a 300-run lead. They say that the bowlers need rest after bowling out a team.
How many captains and players would be okay with four-day Tests? Not many. Virat Kohli is one. He does not want any tinkering with the format. The protagonists want an hour added to each of the four days to make it more exciting. Games in the subcontinent can’t have that. As it is, teams struggle to bowl 85 overs, let alone the mandatory 90 in a day.
First they said Test cricket has to reinvent itself. Then they said the 50-over game is dying, with the T20 bash sweeping the sport globally. An elite caravan of T20 gypsies are on the move round the year making sure of their fiscal future.
T20 has come to stay, the day-night format saved ODIs, but there is a question mark over the monetary returns from Test matches. Organisers complain that hosting a Test is a losing proposition. The hassles are not worth the while. In fact, they say that they make up for the losses from ODI and T20 returns.
Test cricket thrives only when top teams clash and one that attracts crowds wherever it plays is India. The expats create the excitement of watching Test cricket. Even when they were losing in England and Australia in 2014-15, fans flocked to the stadiums.
The one big advantage of Test cricket is playing at home. Most teams look good in their own backyard and that’s good enough to excite fans. South Africa looked awful in India, but the same side bounced back at home against England. New Test centres in smaller cities are pulling spectators to the venues.
The World Test Championship is not through with its inaugural cycle and yet people are talking about four-day Tests, mainly because there have been a lot of lopsided matches in the last decade.
This four-day Test is not a new idea. There were three-day, four-day, five-day, six-day and even a timeless Test in the last millennium. India began with four days, then they had five days before reverting to four days for a while until the five-day format became permanent.
Only 50 per cent of Tests in recent years have gone into the fifth day and by the end of the fourth day the result had invariably become a foregone conclusion. It is not restricted to the poor cousins of Test cricket, even top teams like India, Australia, England and South Africa are finishing matches in four days.
The proposal has to go to the ICC’s Cricket Committee, headed by traditionalist Anil Kumble. Their recommendation will be taken up by the ICC Chief Executives Committee. As things stand, there appears little chance of four-day Tests in the near future unless they divide the Test-playing nations into two divisions, one playing five days and the other four. That is unlikely to happen.
(The writer is a veteran commentator. Views expressed are personal. He can be reached at sveturi@gmail.com)