5 ways to save Test cricket

The first Day/Night Test took place between Australia and New Zealand last month at the Adelaide OvalWhen James Lillywhite and Dave Gregory led their respective England and Combined Australia XI teams out in 1877 for a timeless Test, little had they fancied that Test cricket would have been restricted to five days and also played under artificial lights. That was the first official Test.Tests were four days long until the ‘rest day’ was abolished to include another day. In 1971, the concept of one-day cricket was introduced – sixty overs long then and fifty from 1987.And in 2005, took place the advent of T20 internationals; on 27 November 2015, the inaugural day-night Test was contested in Adelaide.While ODIs waited four years for a World Cup, T20s required only two. Test cricket has yet witnessed only a lifeless tri-nation competition in 1912 and twin campaigns by the Asian Cricket Council in 1998 and 2002.These 5 measures can save the numero uno format of The Gentlemen’s Game:

#1 Scrap the T20 World Cup

Since the first T20I match in 2005, it has grown into one of the major attractions in cricket

When the World T20 2016 arrives, nine years would have seen six editions. The ICC must discard the World T20 post the due event. Instead, the Test Championship – planned for 2017 but replaced by the previously scrapped Champions Trophy – must be rehearsed domestically.

To attract audience, CA staged a maiden day-night Test – inside three days, 123,736 spectators attended; neither was the pink ball mischievous. Come the next county season, and the ECB shall invite the visitors to bowl. Only if the visiting captain declines will the coin be flipped. This curbs an expected home advantage from the design of favourable pitches.

However, the boards are hesitating in attempting a multiple-team Test tournament; even four-day Tests have been discussed.

The BCCI can perhaps supervise a tournament between Ranji Trophy winners, Sheffield Shield champions and the County victors, and boost the prospects of a little likely Test Championship.

With ODIs boasting of two multination events and T20 one – not to forget the plethora of T20 leagues – Test matches demand an immediate impact. T20 for a change is acceptable and only a solitary international should be approved for any tour.

#2 No two-Test series

Two-Test series, like the one between India and SA in 2013, adds less spice to the game and force teams to play safe

Australia played twin two-Test series when the summer of 2011 approached – one away to South Africa and the other at home against the Kiwis. A staggering 23 such competitions have been contested by the top eight teams – including matches against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe – three of which had only a solitary Test (one of them when monsoon-dominated), since December 2011 up to December 2015.

All three of Bangladesh’s home Tests in 2015 were blown away by rain, naturally causing frustration to one of both visiting skippers.

Contrastingly, 12 bilateral series have featured 3 T20 Internationals each during the same period.

Two-Test series have a high probability of being drawn with 1-1 outcomes – and even getting locked at 0-0 – or as seen in the unforgettable Johannesburg Test of 2013 between South Africa and India, where no team lost and cricket won after the hosts threatened to achieve the target of 458, both teams surrendered, knowing that a draw in the game guarantees safety in the series, and allows another crack in the second – and final – Test.

Merely two Tests – in a high voltage series especially – snatches the sheen out of the battle.

#3 Five ODIs replace 2 T20I and 3 ODI-series

India and Pakistan play a T20I in 2012

Something newly rising is the bizarre thought of playing 2 T20Is and 3 ODIs on bilateral tours. Even heated rivalries between India and Pakistan witnessed such a sorry series across 2012 and 2013; New Zealand played on South African soil in 2015 with the same fixtures.

India toured Zimbabwe to play the five matches immediately before the Kiwis landed in Africa. That was the first time the Proteas played international cricket at home in the month of August.

Five ODIs, on the other hand, would sound more of a complete series than only two matches of one format and three of another. The great all-rounder – and Pakistan’s only World Cup-winning captain – Imran Khan wished the arch rivals clashed for the same matches than what they did during their first bilateral encounter in five years.

This concept does not escalate the amount of Test cricket, but clearly buries the effect of a spate of T20 matches besides shooting up the count of ODIs.

#4 Tests precede limited-overs matches

India and South Africa played 3 T20Is and 5 ODIs before playing four Tests

If public interest in Tests is indeed the ICC’s priority, then Tests must precede one-day games in bilateral clashes, and mandatorily so.

Tedious tours absorb two months or more, and for audiences crawling with interest, patience becomes poorer when they have eight limited-overs games – five of fifty overs each – to witness before the Tests. Now their eyes aren’t that bothered to monitor a long Test battle.

Moreover, when news of injuries rule reporters’ records, faces turn grey in team camps. Dale Steyn faced a familiar foe during the first Test in India recently, forcing him out of the last three Tests, and his bowling partner Vernon Philander joined him on the jostling list soon.

Two veterans were gone, as South Africa lost their first away Test series since 2006. Philander would not only go on to miss three games in India but also, at least, the first two against the visiting English.

ODIs and T20Is – nowadays three of them – extract the juice out of the cricketers – particularly the tourists – and their teams lose crucial names for the Tests.

Since 2006, only the ECB and CA have ensured their boys play in whites before coloured clothing.

#5 Abolish two-day & three-day practice games and T20 warm-ups

Two-day and three-day warm-up games are not always quite enough for visiting teams to get acclimatised

Lopsided tours aren’t uncommon anymore – Pakistan crushed England 3-0 in the UAE in early 2012 and 2-0 (3) in 2015, India beat Australia 4-0 in 2013 on chaste turners after falling into their own trap against England in late 2012 and recently blanked South Africa 3-0 in a four-match series which saw a wash out due to incessant rain, etc.

The only solution is not terming pitches ‘poor’ – as was Nagpur’s fate after the South Africa match – but ensuring that the visitors get adequate practice ahead of tough tours.

Rather than permit practice matches of twenty overs length – as if T20 internationals and all multitude leagues were insufficient – the ICC must monitor that host boards conduct practice matches of four days’ length only, and that there are two of them before the commencement of Tests.

This gets the tourists better used to the alien conditions they could encounter on unfamiliar turfs. And killing time and effort for a T20 practice game is only further promoting evil.

Once cricket kings, West Indies players are today lost in a world of wealth, their coach Phil Simmons publicly grieving at the absence of famed T20 names from Tests.

Chris Gayle, recovering from a back spasm, chose the BBL in the same land where – and at the same time when – his country was thrashed inside three days in a Test; Dwayne Bravo quit Tests in 2015 out of frustration for non-selection; Sunil Narine preferred an IPL final to a camp for Tests; Andre Russell’s only Test came in 2010; and their captain Jason Holder – their third Test skipper in three years – is only 12 Tests old.

Ironically, the ACC, once interested in a multi-nation Test event and now diminished by the ICC, will see the Asia Cup be held in the T20 format in 2016. The administrators are a silent ICC.

While Lilywhite and Gregory created history by leading in the first ever Test, nearly fourteen decades on, their game – which was only Test cricket – is in jeopardy of dying; and when fourteen decades do pass on, a Champions Trophy will be played on the soil where a Test Championship was to be held.