Interesting article

[twiy]

Test cricket “murdered”

With the power that is the ICC, it is hard to believe that a governing body of such a sublime sport is unable to resurrect test cricket back to its former glory. The players say it is the curators preparing one sided pitches, the curators are saying it is the players unable to utilize pitches, I say it is in the hands of the powers that be, the ICC. It seems like a ploy or even a conspiracy to kill test cricket. Why you may ask? Money hungry boards and governing bodies are blinded by the success of 2020, why waste money on hosting and marketing test cricket with minimum returns when a 2020 tournament can bring the kind of cash never seen before in cricket. The people in charge are businessmen and not true cricket lovers, much like the underhand politics of world governments, the same game is being played by the ICC. They don’t care about the people, they care only for themselves.

If test cricket was the main concern for these people, with all the technological marvels the world has been able to achieve in the last century, surely they can bring in lively pitches even to the now tarnished stadium in Sinhalese. With the kind of money being generated these days, can it really be that difficult to bring in drop in pitches from Australia, England or South Africa? If drug lords can grow weed in warehouses using special lights and temperature control to get the room atmosphere to match that of countries where it is naturally grown, can a similar approach be looked into? The ICC must proactively search for a solution. In formula 1, the rules were recently changed, all the teams were spending millions of pounds on reconfiguring the cars in order to match race rules, does the ICC need to have a similar approach by passing laws on boards to prepare better pitches and to promote test cricket? Yes some national boards are not in a state to fund for such a venture, but the ICC and two or three national boards have enough funds available to assist the less fortunate boards.

They have left us test lovers in the dark and forgotten about us, they are now looking for a new target audience, the type who enjoys this 2020 nonsense, who cares about us? The type who enjoys a mental challenge lasting 5 days, where the best of the best use their minds to out think the opponent, in 2020 you will never see a Mohammad Asif set up a batsman for 2 or 3 over’s by persisting with immaculate line and length before sending in the killer ball. You will never see a Mike Hussey rescue in Sydney or experience the little master in his astonishing state of mind: Sachin Tendulker engaged in a test innings, the concentration, the patience, the technique, a clear mind, lighting fast reactions being employed over and over again. What a sight! I don’t even need to mention Ashes 2005, perhaps the greatest test series ever. Let’s see a 2020 tournament match that. Is it even possible?

The ICC has a plan, and they are planning on murdering test cricket. We will not see them stand up and say “ right, here is what we are going to do to bring test cricket back, we have a plan over the next 3 – 5 years to revive test cricket” All we hear about is future 2020 prospects and tournaments. I refuse to believe that nothing can be done to revive test cricket. They want it gone and they are doing everything they can to kill it, which in this case is nothing.

[Sir Alex]

Simplistic solutions being offered, but impractical:

1. Drop in pitches from SA/Eng/Aus

What is the purpose of hosting home matches in the subcontinent then? Statistics show that Sri Lanka and India produces as much result matches as England does. So this subcontinental pitches being non conducive results is just a myth.

2. Nobody was advocating, back in the 1950s till 1990s, that the richest boards then, England and Australia, share their money with relatively impoverished Asian boards. Nor anyone were complaining about reluctance of those teams to tour the subcontinent too iirc or host subcontinental teams. I am not saying two wrongs make it right, but despite all these obstacles, subcontinent, India in particular became the epicentre of cricketing moneypower. Why? Nothing but dedicated fanship. No amount of money can substitute for that, nor can make it. That depends a lot on the performances of individual teams too.

3. T20s killing cricket is a myth. Despite the onslaught of T20 matches, particularly the IPL, India hsa played the most number of test matches in the world since 2007, arguably, coinciding with the meteroric rise of the T20 subculture. Also to be noted that, despite being the nation to churn the marketing opportunities of T20s so effectively, India as a test nation actually leapfrogged to no.1 status in test cricket as well. So the inverse proportionality between test cricket and T20 cricket is largely a myth.

[zaremba]

Welcome, mate, and a great first post!

Your point about drug lords is well made. As is this:

Ashes 2005, perhaps the greatest test series ever. Let’s see a 2020 tournament match that. Is it even possible?

Answer: no

[Debris]

Originally Posted by Sir Alex

2. Nobody was advocating, back in the 1950s till 1990s, that the richest boards then, England and Australia, share their money with relatively impoverished Asian boards. Nor anyone were complaining about reluctance of those teams to tour the subcontinent too iirc or host subcontinental teams. I am not saying two wrongs make it right, but despite all these obstacles, subcontinent, India in particular became the epicentre of cricketing moneypower. Why? Nothing but dedicated fanship. No amount of money can substitute for that, nor can make it. That depends a lot on the performances of individual teams too.

I did not see anywhere in the original post anything about needing to share money now either so not sure where that came from. Was it not about spicing up the pitches?

And nothing but dedicated fanship? The fact that there are 1 billion plus people in India might have a little to do with it. No matter how dedicated fans from other countries are or how well their team is performing, they are not going to be able to compete with that financially.

[Sir Alex]

Originally Posted by Debris

I did not see anywhere in the original post anything about needing to share money now either so not sure where that came from. Was it not about spicing up the pitches?

And nothing but dedicated fanship? The fact that there are 1 billion plus people in India might have a little to do with it. No matter how dedicated fans from other countries are or how well their team is performing, they are not going to be able to compete with that financially.

This is the part of his/her post I was referring to:

Originally Posted by twiy

Yes some national boards are not in a state to fund for such a venture, but the ICC and two or three national boards have enough funds available to assist the less fortunate boards.

How come the entire billion or atleast the millions get involved so much in the game? Surely the team's performances had to do something with it right?

[Debris]

Originally Posted by Sir Alex

This is the part of his/her post I was referring to:



How come the entire billion or atleast the millions get involved so much in the game? Surely the team's performances had to do something with it right?

The team's performance, of course, has something to do with it. More people will follow a successful team but that was not my point. Say 2 teams are being equally successful and get 10 percent of the population to follow them. 10% of a billion is 100 million, 10% of 4 million is 400 thousand so it does not matter how well NZ, for example, performs they are not going to have the finances of India.

If that was the part you were referring to, surely the cost is going to be pretty negligible. Particularly if it is going to be spread across all the test-playing nations.

[twiy]

good point