The Standpoint

Concern takes shape over future of five-dayers

By

Abhishek Mukherjee

The craze for the Ashes seems to spare no cricket enthusiast. The First Test at Cardiff got off to a slow start as both squads were a little circumspect. Invariably as all Ashes encounters, the match was an extremely close one as Australia had almost wrapped it up in the last hour of the final day. All spectators were entertained to a cliff-hanger of a contest, yet the image of a couple of elder men in the stands having forty winks in the midst of it seems to suggest a broader tale, a cause for concern.

Former England opener Geoff Boycott, among many others, believes Test cricket is dying and that it is time to panic.

“If you're watching England against Australia this summer, we're all

seduced into believing Test cricket is fine because you could sell Test match cricket twice over for huge amounts of money because it is the oldest form of Test match cricket and has history and tradition. But every other series around the world there are declining attendances and there have been declining attendances for many years,” he said.

For quite some time now, and more so since the advent of the exciting Twenty20, Test cricket has been losing its audiences. The purest form of the game, synonymous to classical music in the world of entertainment, does not pull in crowds as in the days of Benaud and Gavaskar. After much deliberation on the matter by rule-makers Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), the International Cricket Council has finally woken up to realise the gravity of the situation, though for settling on the right steps to take a definite shape the ICC seems confused and still lethargic to panic.

A 19-member committee of the MCC, including former greats such as Alec Stewart and Steve Waugh, had recently put forward a proposal of having a World Test Championship and trial of day/night Tests with pink balls, to add to the anticipation and thrill of the longest version, and enhance its viewership.

“Test cricketers want to be able to say they're the world champions of Test cricket. Most players still believe it is the pinnacle of the game and why not reward that every couple of years with a Test cricket championship or a trophy you've won?” said Waugh, who also reasoned that it would dump the dependence of a mere ranking system.

Five full days of perceived slow cricket without any guarantee of a declared winner at the end of it is a major reason for the huge decline in its popularity in recent years, when a cricket devotee satisfies his interest through one-dayers and T20’s in the fast-paced lifestyle.

Boycott also mentioned that the entire packaging of Test cricket needs a re-look, and marketed better, like T20 tournaments such as the Indian Premier League (IPL).

The MCC has also opined that a proper control on the number of foreign players recruited in the IPL, especially from lower-ranked nations could avoid players being lost in lucrative deals, for cricketers are nowadays shortening their Test careers to concentrate on the shorter versions – Andrew Flintoff and Chaminda Vaas have both announced retirement from Tests, saying they wanted to continue in ODIs and T20s. Captain of West Indies Chris Gayle was in controversy around two months ago for voicing that to him T20 was far more important and exciting than Tests. Future of the original form of the game is there for everyone to see, and it is difficult to fathom ICC’s lack of initiative to rectify the situation, which has gone disastrously out of hands.

In fact, the ICC has taken strange decisions in the past years that have been impossible to comprehend. It awarded Test status to Bangladesh when the standards of Test cricket was already going low; it allowed back-to-back Tests which spelled doom for cricketers for lack of breathing space; it had no say in the wrongly planned itineraries: it is feared that as long as it schedules some tournaments (not involving Tests) and cricket boards of nations organise matches separately, the itinerary would never be coordinated. Needless to say, the ICC lacked inventiveness to analyse and help the condition.

It has come up with an idea of having four-day Tests, a suggestion that has brought criticism from all quarters. It has, however, succumbed to the pressures by the MCC and has accepted the possibility of trial of a day/night Tests scheme in 2010.

The solution to the uphill battle to draw crowds lies in making the ‘boring’ game ‘interesting’. As the purists sigh in despair over the popularity of ‘instinctive’ cricket which is acting like a slow poison for the five-day version, the ICC needs definitive direction and quick, bold decisions to save it from extinction.