Bairstow in plea to keep the Test match battle over five days
JONNY Bairstow has given enthusiastic backing for day-night Test cricket but has rejected calls for four-day matches in the oldest form of the game.
The England wicketkeeperbatsman is taking part in the first pink-ball Test in the UK against the West Indies at Edgbaston this week and believes the new format could prove a real success in terms of attracting a new audience.
“Personally, I think we’re very lucky in England to sell Test matches out during the day,” said Bairstow. “In many ways, it’s a case of being adaptable, sometimes from country to country, from place to place or even city to city. If there’s a city that’s got the capabilities of holding daynight cricket in Bangladesh, India, the West Indies or England, wherever it may be, and they think it more feasible to get more people through the gate in the evening, it’s important we adapt to that. It’s going to be a learning curve.”
However, Bairstow is less enthusiastic about the prospect of four-day Test cricket – an option being actively explored by the International Cricket Council and one advocated by his fellow Yorkshireman Colin Graves when he took over as chairman of the England & Wales Cricket Board two summers ago.
“I think it has to remain five-day Tests,” said Bairstow. “It’s called Test cricket for a reason – you find about yourself, about your teammates. Last year we were in the dirt for 200 overs in the first and last Tests of the year [against South Africa in Cape Town and India at Chennai] and I can tell you now, when you’re going in for your fifth session in the field and seeing who’s around to stand up and still raring to go, that’s when you really know your teammates.
“Seeing Alastair Cook bat for 14 hours in Abu Dhabi [against Pakistan in 2015] – that is Test cricket. That’s something you’ll never see in four-day county cricket.
“It’s part of you that you’ve got to strive towards, you’ve got to want to do things like that and if you take it down to four days I genuinely don’t see that being the way forward.”
Graves and many other cheerleaders for four-day Tests argue it would make the game more exciting and bring it up to speed in the T20 age as well as proving more profitable for grounds who often make losses on the fifth days of matches.
Yet Bairstow believes it would devalue the spectacle of Test cricket and lead to contrived finishes.
“Nobody wants to see people bowling lob-ups for declarations,” he said. “Yes, there are Tests now finishing in four days but they’re finishing in four days when people are getting things wrong and opponents are capitalising on them.
“It’s not batting for 150 overs, bowling lob-ups and trying to set something up.You either start bowling lob-ups for two hours and the crowd start moaning or you actually have four or four-and-a-half days of really hard, tough Test cricket where everyone is really enthralled by it.”