Death of Test cricket?

[Donny]

Love this Bradman story.

An ambitious young reporter asked Sir Don, "How do you think you'd go, in this modern era" ?

Bradman: "Oh, I'd average in the fifties"

Reporter (thinking he had a 'gotcha' moment), "Aha. That's a lot less than your 99.94 days"

Bradman: "Well, I am 94"

^ Not word for word. But as I remember it. The gist is there.

[Lazza]

^^^^^^^

Brilliant one Donny 😆😂

[K]

I. Chappell:

Test cricket can't afford to be boring

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/ian-chappell-test-cricket-cannot-afford-to-be-boring-1305046

"Test cricket is a severely challenged format and for the game to prosper it requires serious consultation.

The last thing the five-day game needs is benign pitches, large first-innings scores, or distinctly uneven matches. ...

Test cricket is not a statistical exercise and most games ought to result in a decent contest between bat and ball. The main task for administrators is to ensure the laws provide an environment conducive to this contest.
...

The number of hard-fought Test matches is in question, partly because the ICC has wrongfully burdened some teams with an unearned reward: the list of teams with Test status requires a significant overhaul, preferably resulting in two divisions, with the number of top-tier teams being culled.

In addition to having a chance of victory, all qualified teams should maintain an acceptable standard, while their infrastructure needs to be of a competent level. The future tours schedule has to reflect balance and competitiveness, and hopefully this will lead to an even more worthwhile World Test championship competition.
...

If the reward for strong captains is a team of competitors and a suitable surface to play on, a Test match can be an enthralling contest. This should be the aim of administrators worldwide, and if they are serious about the future of the format, Test cricket needs encouraging."

[K]

A. Miller, cricinfo:

"But then there was the Test match. And frankly it was a miracle if anyone other than the sun-seeking punters packed into the Kensington Oval gave it more than a passing nod of recognition. Randomly, their number included Manchester United's interim manager, Ralf Rangnick, who must surely have ranked among the most baffled guests-of-honour since President Eisenhower watched Pakistan grind out 104 runs in a day against Australia in Karachi in 1959, and reputedly asked his advisers: "when does the action begin?"
...

At these clutch moments of the sport's inherently paranoid existence, you can always rely on some defender of the faith to trot out that tediously parroted line: "That's why they call it a Test match", and yes, it's true, there is something magnificent about the nonsensically quirky stats that can crop up on a day like this. Jack Leach, for instance, bowled 212 balls at Braithwaite alone, the equivalent of more than 35 of the 69.5 overs that he churned out in the course of West Indies' innings - the most by any England bowler since Phil Tufnell at Wellington in 1992.
...

The ends in Test cricket cannot be allowed to endlessly justify the means, because the sport needs to fall back on more than just its own context for sustenance. It's no longer acceptable to point out that Shivnarine Chanderpaul, say, batted 510 balls for 136 not out against India in 2002, and therefore dirges of this ilk need to be accepted as part of the game's rich tapestry - any more than the snore-draw in Rawalpindi earlier this month deserves a free pass simply because Australia hadn't played a Test in Pakistan for 24 years. However much of a Test-cricket aficionado you might be, you'd have to agree, that spectacle was hardly the way to encourage a rematch any time before 2046.

And it matters also because of the zeitgeist within which Test cricket is trying to stay relevant.
...

Instead, Wood's now worse off in body and pocket, and arguably the only people who have truly benefitted from his endeavours are CWI, whose lifeless surfaces have guaranteed five full days of gate receipts, concessions takings and hospitality windfalls from the thousands of England fans...
...

Because it is hard to believe that spectacles such as the ones currently panning out are why anyone would still watch the game."

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/wi-vs-eng-2nd-test-barbados-kraigg-brathwaites-hard-yards-cannot-disguise-futility-at-heart-of-barbados-grind-1306494

[Pies4shaw]

All of my life, Test cricket has struggled for the right balance on preparation of pitches. I have no idea how old you are or how long you've been watching cricket but back in the 1960s, we tended to the view that if a team made over 300 in the first innings of a Test, they would not lose. It wasn't a hard and fast rule, of course, but the view was a product of a few things, including the general state of the pitches, the more limited amount of cricket that was actually played in many games and the general expectation that wickets would become disastrous for batting towards the end of the match - thus, if you batted first, you had a huge advantage because the team batting last was not likely to reach much of a score in that final innings, at all.

In those days, draws were very much the norm - unless one team was vastly superior to the other. The Lillee/Thomson/Walker/Mallett attack Australia sent out in the 70s and 80s was, at times, virtually unplayable. That led to lots of results, even against batting lineups sporting all-time greats. So did the various WIndies attacks, initially led by Roberts, Holding and Garner but later sporting Marshall (perhaps the greatest of them all) and then Ambrose.

As a response to low over-numbers, caused largely by the dominance of fast bowling in recent decades, we now have a series of rules that are designed to ensure that about 90 overs are bowled per day. That certainly increased the amount of cricket available to be played in a Test match in fine weather but also dramatically exposed less-capable teams, so that results inside 4 days became the norm, at least on typical wickets.

It seems that hosting countries are now concerned to avoid the unedifying spectacle of Tests finishing in 3 days by preparing the life out of wickets. We've seen egregious examples of that in Pakistan and I am watching another game like that in Barbados, right now. The difference is that the 2 Pakistani wickets didn't really deteriorate at all, whereas the Barbados result seems to have been decided by the first innings - England made just over 500 and the West Indies' luck (and that is at all it is) in losing the toss and being compelled to bat second and last. The Barbados wicket gradually declined, progressively, from the outset. So, it was harder to make runs in the 2nd of the 4 innings than in the first and so on. That makes a more "exciting" game - at least, by the end - but it doesn't really turn on the relative merits of the teams. It's more like watching one of those games of footy that used to happen from time to time in olden days, where the wind would occasionally swing around to the south-west and blow a team home to victory on the back of 3 quarters with a 4-goal breeze.

I do not consider that the pitches for the first two Tests in Pakistan were fit for Test cricket. It is, frankly, ridiculous that the home team was nearly able to snatch victory in the 2nd Test, despite taking only 11 Australian wickets - and that a team that could be bundled out for under 200 in the first innings looked like 900 might have been a genuinely possible target for much of the 4th innings. It is no answer to say that it is about some inability of Australia's spinners to bowl well enough in the 4th innings. The pitch simply never gave bowlers an even chance and became, remarkably, even slower and deader as the match progressed. By contrast, I am watching Dan Lawrence - an off-spinner of barely-adequate craft - bringing up puffs of dust, the pitch literally exploding on a good length. I think England will probably win - but let's not pretend that's because the fearsome combination of Leach and Lawrence have ability that exceeds that which Lyon and Swepson possess.

Test cricket has always been "dying". I expect you would find articles from the 1930s saying more or less the same things - you certainly would find them in the 60s and 70s. Personally, I prefer the game that is over in 3 days - because it tends to be decided according to talent, rather than luck: if you get to bat first, you make runs because you can bat, rather than because you got to bat first. However, that's obviously a loss-leader that cricket boards can't finance, so I guess we'll see a lot more of the sorts of games we've seen in recent times - and probably also in Australia for the same reasons. These things, though, go in cycles. If Tests become boring enough, all the pitches will be "livened up" - except in countries where the home teams have embarrasingly poor batting lineups and then we'll worry again about matches finishing inside 3 days.

[Donny]

Good read, Pies4.

[Skids]

[K]

Dilip Jajodia, owner of Dukes manufacturer British Cricket Balls:

“The pitches are pretty dead in Pakistan. There’s not a blade of grass on the pitch. Whatever ball it is, if the pitch is dead, you have a problem, but I think you have more chance with a hand-stitched ball in dead conditions than a machine-stitched ball.

“In Pakistan, they are so terrified of the games finishing early that they encourage the game to go on for a longer time.

“Pakistan have got a relatively new regime with Ramiz Raja who has taken over as chairman and he’s a highly experienced man. But he’s come in and I don’t know who has been influencing him.”
...

“It’s very easy to make a machine-stitched ball and frankly, it should be banned from international cricket in my view...

“When you play with a machine-stitched ball, it’s only being held together by the two middle rows and once you start playing with it, the two outer rows get flattened down after hitting the deck and bat. After about 20 overs, there’s no rudder and the tension is completely gone, so it goes soft.

“Therefore on a dead pitch you’ve got nothing. If you have a look at the ball after 80 overs, you think a dog has been playing with it in the playground.

“With the hand-stitched ball, all six rows are going backwards and forwards, holding the ball together. The mesh of thread underneath, going backwards and forwards, causes the seam to act more as a rudder, so it gives more assistance for aerodynamics and also for creating bounce or deviation off the pitch.”

(SMH)


[Obviously Jajodia is biased towards his own balls. It'd be better if dead pitches were banned from international cricket... If a pitch is dead, the ICC should just strip the ground of Test status. That'll stop it before it kills Test cricket.]

[K]

G. Chappell:

... Test cricket ... is at a pivotal point

"We are at a pivotal point in Test cricket. South Africa must bounce back... If they don’t or can’t, valid questions will be asked about the decline of Test cricket outside of the Big Three.

Many in South Africa say that the domestic game is just not producing good young batters. The best bowlers are away too often and the next generation of batters are simply not getting the challenges they need. This is a problem that most countries face, but it is more obvious outside the stronger nations.

The elephant in the room is the fiscal imbalance between the Big Three – India, England and Australia – and the rest of the Test playing countries. ...

The senseless proliferation of T20 leagues has led to the unavailability of the best players in many countries. ...

They cannot continue in the same vein, filling their own coffers and opting to play frequently with one another, whilst the rest of the Test-playing nations are on their knees. If they don’t, we will have more one-sided Test matches that no one wants to host and no one wants to watch.
...

The encroachment of T20 tournaments, has resulted in more players turning their backs on Test cricket and others suffering injuries from their non-stop dalliance. T20 cricket is fast becoming an existential threat to Test cricket, not its saviour, as some would have you believe.
...

This is cricket’s climate emergency and needs to be tackled with the utmost urgency and desperation. The rest will otherwise run their own T20 tournaments and give up on Test cricket permanently, as they can’t pay their players enough to keep them in national colours."

(SMH)

[Pies4shaw]

Curmudgeonly old bastard, isn't he?

[K]

Baum:

Australia remain a big fish in a rapidly shrinking Test pond

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/australia-remain-a-big-fish-in-a-rapidly-shrinking-test-pond-20221229-p5c9b7.html

"What this illustrates all too graphically is that world cricket has become a two-speed economy. Australia and India are first and second in the world and growing ever more prosperous. England’s position is anomalous. ...

Between them, they have the money, the clout and a tacit arrangement to play one another as often as they can while not being too obvious about it, and so add to their riches and clout.

What has happened to the rest?
...

If it was any other sport, it would be split into two divisions. The divide is as much economic as cultural. As seen this week, one Indian Premier League club can afford to pay Cameron Green for a month’s work more than what you imagine Zimbabwe can offer their entire squad for a year.

Meanwhile, South Africa reportedly are touring Australia without even a data analyst, an essential in any modern pro sports team, and it is showing in the naivety of some of their cricket. They must read about the broadcast money now on the table in Australia and weep.

The rich get richer, the poor poorer. As national boards seek new funds, T20 leagues are springing up everywhere. But it’s still two-tiered, which means that while South Africa flounders, accomplished veterans Faf du Plessis are playing in the Big Bash League. So are Kiwis Trent Boult, Colin de Grandhomme and Martin Guptill while their Test toils in Pakistan. The landscape is all askew.

It’s going to get worse and it might not get better.
...

If Test cricket is under threat, it’s not because it is a dated, inferior or unpopular game. The threat to Test cricket is that it is running out of tests."

[Pies4shaw]

[K]

Trent Boult:

“I’m incredibly proud of what I’ve achieved in the Test arena. But I’ve got three young kids and I look at my career as a length of string. I feel like I’m at the later end of that piece of string.”

“I do understand that the decision to give back my contract obviously is going to open the door for other people.”

“It might be common for guys at a certain point of their careers. I think if kids who have played a year of international cricket are choosing to do it over international cricket, that might be a worry.”

“Every kid, or 97 per cent of them, want to be an All Black. They want to be Dan Carter, Richie McCaw. There’ll be two-three per cent that want to be a cricketer, and probably two of those three per cent want to be Kane, a batter. ”

[On Cricket Victoria’s Junction Oval headquarters:] “There’s nothing like this in New Zealand. I walked into the rooms upstairs and there are four physios treating four different players. I don’t think New Zealand even has a full-time physio.”


(G. Baum, The Age.)

[K]

Usman Khawaja:

"But at the end of the day, it all comes down to money. In Australia we’re paid pretty well to play Test cricket but in most countries they’re not. I think there’s a little cause for concern."

"But the big one is things like unionism. I was in the IPL a few years ago talking to various players about their player associations and some of them didn’t have one. Somewhere like Pakistan, what they’re getting paid is peanuts."

"When you can get $500,000 for playing T20 cricket and $100,000 for playing Test cricket in those other countries I wouldn’t know anyone who would pick $100,000 when you’re trying to look after your family."


(M. Conn, Sydney Morning Herald)

[K]