Does 5 day Test cricket have a future? Ebb & Flow or Profit & Loss?
The 4th Test between England and India at the Oval enters a fifth and final day on Monday with all results possible (and none yet predictable) and a sell out crowd. The game has not been weather interrupted (save briefly for bad light) it has just been absorbing cricket.
Will it one wonders lessen calls for Test to be four days affairs?
In late 2019- pre-pandemic-Michael Vaughan underlined his view that Test matches should be 4 and not 5 days long. My thoughts on this at the time are here:
The fact that the ICC which runs cricket globally is looking at the future of the Test format from 2023 underwrites the discussion and it must be said that most who have commented are at best not unequivocal supporters of a 4 day format.
On a more routine level Vaughan’s call for 4 day Tests received a number of responses both in the Telegraph (where it appeared) and in the Murdoch Times.
Most commentators seemed clear that the call for 4 day Tests is driven not by players but by administrators keen to fit even more cricket and money making opportunities into the year. As Mike Atherton noted in the Times the idea that shorter Tests would give players more rest is not likely to occur in reality.
The Telegraph reported that Surrey who are the most profitable English and Welsh County were also opposed to any change on the basis that the existing format brought in money that keeps the County game going.
On the plus side it is suggested that a 4 day Test would mean that matches could return to always starting on a Thursday although I’m not quite sure this fits with Administrators plans to shoehorn more games into the calendar. Neither am I sure that it really matters all that much now in a sporting world in general where games of some kind are going on more or less all the time somewhere.
Atherton in the Times made the more profound point that 4 day games would destroy the fundamental nature of Test cricket (albeit an absolute requirement that a Test match be 5 days has only existed since 1979 it appears):
‘time after all, is the essence of Test cricket: it allows for the pitches to deteriorate and the game to take its natural, rather than artificial, course’
I agree. Ebb and flow is the very essence of Test cricket but not much valued by those who measure is profit and loss
Leave a Reply