Cook’s worries at future for test game

Former England captain Alastair Cook fears for the longest form of the game after the England and Wales Cricket Board’s proposal for a 100-ball format.

Cook is England’s leading run scorer in test cricket and has made his name as one of the most durable players in the five-day game.

The ECB last week announced plans for a new city-based tournament, set to launch in 2020, which will be even shorter than the Twenty20 format and has polarised opinion.

With the focus moving further and further away from test cricket, the 33-year-old is worried for the format of the game where he has been so prolific.

“Yeah I do worry,” he said. “It’s easy to see that certain crowds at certain test matches – although not in this country – are down in numbers.

“When I watch Twenty20 cricket there’s a different satisfaction.

“At this moment in time, why would you put yourself through the stresses and strains of the five-day game when you can play three-hour, or two-and-ahalf-hour crash-bang-wallop?

“For a deep-down cricket fan, it’s very different to what we know, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t go back the other way.

“Obviously, I want to protect test cricket, because I have a real affinity to it.

“But I would have that affinity even if I was playing T20, more from satisfaction. Do they get the same satisfaction?

“Maybe the next generation will. But that hundred you get in six hours is a very satisfying feeling, a real triumph of skill.

“I don’t quite see that in the 20-over game. Or the 100-ball game. But the landscape is changing.”

Picture: PA. Alastair Cook has excelled at test cricket.