Tests need to be sped up: Warne

AUSTRALIAN cricket great Shane Warne believes fourday Tests are the future for the longest form of the game which needs to be more “energetic” to maintain its place in the sporting landscape.

Warne, Australia’s leading all-time Test wicket taker with 708 scalps in 145 matches in the baggy green, has flagged a series of changes to the traditional format in a bid to protect it from the rise of the more commercially viable Twenty20.

Adamant Test cricket “brings out the best in players”, Warne advocated the shift to more intense action over four days in his new book No Spin, worried cricket officials aren’t protecting the game.

As Australia prepares to reenter the Test arena against Pakistan in Dubai on Sunday, the first match since the balltampering scandal in South Africa, Warne also said no first innings in a Test match should go beyond 130 overs.

“I’m a big believer in fourday Tests. We need to move the game on. Over rates are ridiculously slow these days; teams struggle to bowl the minimum 90 in the day,” Warne wrote. “We have 450over Test matches, most of which finish early. I’m proposing four days, with a firstinnings limit of 130 overs.”