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This was published 7 years ago
Mark Taylor, Dean Jones and Shane Warne are correct - five days is too long for Test cricket
By Peter FitzSimons
Mark Taylor, Dean Jones and yes, even Shane Warne, are right.
All three have called this week for urgent attention to be given to reviving Test cricket or face its inevitable demise.
Rival skippers: Steve Smith and Faf du Plessis at the WACA on the eve of the first Test.Credit: Getty Images
Dean Jones, as was ever his wont, led the charge, saying that "if Test cricket continues on its current descent it will be dead within a decade. TV ratings in Asia are declining at a rapid rate and the interest in this format is becoming non-existent with Asian youth."
His theme was that if you lose the Indian, Sri Lankan and Pakistani kids of the rising generation, then it is game over, as ultimately the subcontinent is the economic engine that pays the big bucks for cricketers around the world – and their viewing of Test cricket in recent times has fallen off a cliff.
Warne, while a tad less economically focused, seems to broadly agree: "Should we just leave test cricket as it is & hope people start watching again?" he tweeted, as he, by gawd, has ever been wont to do. "It's v sad, but Test cricket is becoming boring for the fans. Test cricket needs – Promotion, more attacking cricket from the captains, pitches need to spin or seam, not flat & players need to entertain."
Fair enough, both Jones and Warne have a touch of Harry Headline about them, inclined to say and write things they know will generate comments – for shame you bastards, I say, for SHAME – but when as sober a character as Mark Taylor agrees, and he is a member of the Australian Cricket Board, then you have to know, Houston, that planet Earth is blue, and there's nothing you can do – you really must reckon the Test version of the game has a problem.
(I mean, after you add your and my colossal level of disinterest over the Test cricket our blokes face this summer. Did you even know, up until a few days ago, that the South Africans were on the horizon? Anyone at work been talking about it? Counting down the days? Tell them they have to get out more. No one has been talking about it!)
Taylor offers his own solution to getting Test cricket going again. He says it is time for Test cricket to go from a five-day format to a four-day format. The way he sees it, you could start the matches in the Thursday daytime, and build it up over four days to the huge climax on Sunday evenings at prime time, as the nation, as one, holds it breath – just like we did in the old days.
"It'll only add to the appeal of the game, make it a bit shorter and a bit faster. That's what people of this generation want to see," the long time Australian captain and opening batsman and now ACB batsman told SEN radio on Tuesday. And he's right! There is no doubt that in the world of instant everything, of everything moving at fast forward, Test cricket is a relief in that the pace is slower, the result more tantalisingly revealed, and there is even time for some character development among the leading players of this sporting theatre. But ... five days? Too long. Who, now, gives focus to anything for five days in a row?
But with four days?
"You've got one less day to win, lose or draw a game," Taylor says, "so it does force captains and players to be a little bit more aggressive in their thinking."
Exactly.
It is quite possible that four days will still be about 3½ days too long for the younger generation, who love Twenty20 cricket, but so be it.
For me, that is wham, bam, thankyou, ma'am, bubble-gum cricket. It is pleasurable enough at the time, but instantly forgettable – a glorified game of hit and run, for which I am sure they must keep some kind of records, but I'll be buggered if anyone has ever consulted them. Do you even remember a single game of Twenty20? An incident perhaps? A particularly splendid innings? A bowling spell that will warm the cockles of your soul?
I can't. But four-day Test cricket as Taylor describes could work. Particularly if we could find some characters in the side we can really warm to. Name them now? I can't. Nice enough blokes, I suppose, but who among the current mob do you feel like you actually know, the way we once "knew" Dean Jones, Shane Warne, and even Mark Taylor? Taylor is right. It is time to embrace Goldilocks cricket – not too short, not too long, but just riiiiight.
Four days is fine.
Twitter: @Peter_Fitz