ECB leading push for four-day Tests
New format would be in place for matches in 2020 South Africa and Zimbabwe to trial it from Boxing Day
The traditional five-day Test, which has been a feature of the English summer for nearly 70 years, will end in 2020 if the England and Wales Cricket Board has its way.
The ECB is leading the push for Tests to be reduced to four days after the 2019 Ashes summer, believing it is the best way to breathe new life into the game’s oldest format, and is confident it has the support of broadcasters and host grounds.
A four-day Test would start in England half an hour earlier, at 10.30am, to give teams more time to bowl the increased number of overs in a day and with all venues now having floodlights, play would be extended where possible. Sources have told The Sunday Telegraph the ECB will put its weight behind the switch to four-day Tests at the next board meeting of the International Cricket Council in New Zealand next month which will discuss the restructuring of the game and introduction of a Test championship in 2020.
The ECB’s support for four-day Test cricket will alarm traditionalists who already feel the game is being squeezed by too much Twenty20, with the introduction of a new league in England in two years’ time.
Reducing Tests to four days will help the ECB and other boards schedule their domestic Twenty20 leagues and ease the workload on players. It is understood the ECB’s new broadcast deal does not guarantee Tests will be scheduled for five days, removing one potential obstacle for change. A shift to four-day Tests would enable the ECB to guarantee Thursday starts for each match, which is the preferred option for Test-match grounds as it allows them to maximise corporate income.
Next summer, England and India are squeezing a five-match Test series into seven weeks, forcing Trent Bridge to host a game that starts on Saturday, making the sale of corporate hospital-over ity boxes very difficult. Tests have been scheduled over five days since 1973. A series that year between New Zealand and Pakistan was the last to be played over four days.
But South Africa announced this week they planned to play a four-day Test starting on Boxing Day against Zimbabwe, and the ICC is set to give it approval at its board meeting next month. More experiments with four days are expected around the world the next 12 months as the initiative gathers momentum.
Colin Graves, the chairman of the ECB, and its chief executive, Tom Harrison, have both publicly supported the concept of four-day Tests. ECB support is significant because England is the only country in the world where Tests are consistently sold out.
Last year, Graves said about four-day Tests: “Every Test would start on a Thursday, with Thursday and Friday being corporate days and then Saturday and Sunday the family days. From a cost point of view, you’d lose that fifth day, which would save a lot of money from the ground’s point of view and the broadcasters... I would look at that.”
Only two of England’s seven Tests this summer lasted into the fifth day. In the 1980s, 77 per cent of Tests ended on the fifth day, but that has reduced to 58 per cent since the start of this century.
There are fears that reducing Tests to four days will increase the number of draws but with this generation of players brought up on Twenty20, the pace of the game has changed and is unlikely to slow down.
The majority of players are believed to remain sceptical about four-day Tests because of the problem with over rates. England often use the extra halfhour to bowl the 90 overs minimum in a day of Test cricket, with delays such as DRS appeals slowing the game.
The ICC will have to address over rates, or players accept they have to bat on under floodlights, if the four-day plan is to become a reality.
England coach Trevor Bayliss has made clear his preference for picking players for the Ashes tour with prior experience of Test cricket, but an exception will be made this week for Ben Foakes as he fulfils a path to international cricket that has been mapped out since he was a teenager.
Foakes is likely to be named in the Ashes squad on Wednesday, with the intention that he starts the tour as Jonny Bairstow’s understudy. But with such frailty to England’s batting, it would not be a surprise if he were handed a debut in Australia. Bairstow, as one of the team’s leading batsmen, may well be forced up the order as there are question marks hanging over the players at numbers three and five and, to ease his workload, Foakes could take over keeping duties.
Foakes’s selection this week will end the Test career, for the time being, of Jos Buttler, who signalled that he did not expect to go to Australia by signing a deal to play in the Bangladesh Premier League next month.
He will earn £250,000 in the BPL and England are keen for him to gain as much experience as possible in franchise leagues as part of their building towards the 2019 World Cup.
Buttler has also done little to push his four-day cricket forward, playing only four championship matches for Lancashire – IPL and England one-day cricket has left him few opportunities – and failing to make a 50.
Foakes has continued his progress at Surrey and his regular sessions with Bruce French, the England keeping coach, show how much England are investing in his future.
Foakes moved to Surrey from Essex three years ago because he felt his keeping career would be stunted as he waited for James Foster to retire. At the Oval, he took a while to establish himself as the first-choice keeper but over the past two seasons has emerged as the best young gloveman in the country. An Ashes tour would be his first senior call-up, and with the backing of Andy Flower, the Lions coach, Alec Stewart at Surrey and French, he has strong references.
“He is just a natural gloveman,” said Stewart. “I said he was the best in the world at the start of the summer and people questioned me about that but I say, well, show me someone who is a better gloveman. People might be equal but when I say who is better, nobody gives me an answer.
“He will miss chances, all keepers do, but they are few and far between. He also has the ability to change a game with a bit of brilliance, whether it be a stumping or a catch. His hand speed is second to none.”
When Foakes broke through at Essex he was hailed as the next Alastair Cook and batted in the top three but chose instead to develop his wicketkeeping.
He went on his first Lions tour as a 19-year-old and again to Australia in 2013, despite having played only five first-class matches, where Flower was first impressed by his keeping. After Foakes took 10 dismissals in a match for the Lions this year, Flower described his glovework as “artistic”.
Foakes spent a day working with England at the Oval this summer and his Ashes call-up would justify his move to Surrey. He is averaging 47 with the bat this season, having made his first championship hundred of the summer two weeks ago.
His overall career batting average of 42 is higher than Tom Westley, Dawid Malan and Mark Stoneman, the three batsmen picked this summer.
“I would have no problem having him bat in the top seven in Test cricket,” Stewart told The Sunday Telegraph. “If he went in at seven he will do well. He would play in our side as a batter anyway alone, and he is a proper, genuine all-rounder. If something happened to Jonny, I would have no problems with Foakesy going straight into that side.” Picking Foakes is straightforward for the selectors when they meet on Tuesday, but choosing the batsmen will be one of the toughest Ashes calls for years.
Stoneman is certain to go as Cook’s partner. Malan ground out enough runs, with two sixties against West Indies, to claim a place. Gary Ballance retains the support of Joe Root so is likely to keep his place in the squad and can at least say he was not dropped this summer, a broken finger instead interrupting his season in mid July.
Keaton Jennings can open and offer back-up in two areas. But he was badly found out by South Africa and has since done little for Durham with scores of 0, 16, 17, 13, 6 and 10 in championship cricket. Strong county form back with Essex would have earned Westley a reprieve after his struggles but he has not passed 36 in three innings since the end of the West Indies series.
With doubts over Alex Hales against the kind of high-class pace he would face in Australia and his strength to cope with the scrutiny of Test cricket (his storming of the third umpire’s room last summer showed a player struggling with the pressure) he falls behind Westley and Jennings.
With Haseeb Hameed out with a broken finger, the selectors will pick a batsman who has not produced enough runs to deserve to go to Australia. Westley and Jennings face an anxious few days.
‘Foakes has the ability to change a game. His hand speed is second to none’