SO, ARE OUR EXPERTS IN FAVOUR OF SHORTER TESTS?
NOOF ALL the stupid ideas dreamt up by modern cricket administrators, this is one of the worst. Tests last for five days. End of. Reducing them by a day would ruin the whole rhythm and dynamic of Test cricket. It would become a lesser game. Just think of some of the fantastic fifth-day draws. How about Old Trafford and the Oval in the greatest of all Ashes series in 2005? What about the Graham Onions-inspired thrillers at Cape Town and Centurion here in South Africa 10 years ago. Monty Panesar and Jimmy Anderson at Cardiff in 2009 anyone? Panesar again and Matt Prior in Auckland in 2013. And it is not only draws — what about West Indies chasing down 322 to win against all the odds at Headingley in 2017. The list is endless. OK, I know a lot of games end in four days now but the mindset would be completely different if that was the duration from the start. It would encourage negative cricket because it would be easier to play for a draw. The longer the game, the more chance of the better team winning. And if a day or more is lost to rain, you can forget all about a positive result. Goodness, players find it hard enough to bowl 90 overs in a day now, let alone 98. At Centurion, we lost 10 overs one day and seven the next. When Colin Graves said he was in favour of four-day Tests after becoming chairman of the ECB in 2015, he said there should be 105 overs in a day. Good luck with that one, Mr Chairman. And don’t forget to turn the lights out when you eventually leave the ground. Don’t listen when advocates of this say it would help player welfare and reduce workloads. Since when have administrators cared about that? As soon as they make more room, they will fill it with yet another Twenty20 league or, heaven forbid, more Hundred matches.