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Test Cricket and T20

fredfertang

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
I think Test cricket is the best sport there is - ‘that beautiful, beautiful game that is battle and service, and sport and art’ captivated me in childhood and has never let go. List A/ODI never had the same hold,but I was young when it started, and adaptable, and was always prepared to watch it and take an interest. T20 though I hated when it came in, so much so that up until about five years ago I almost never watched it, even if England or Lancashire were playing, and didn’t really think of it as cricket. But slowly it has worked its way into my enjoyment of the game, mainly I think because a format that started as one only about batsmen is now a proper battle between bat and ball. Other than when work commitments have prevented it I have watched every single game in this year’s World Cup and enjoyed it immensely


Anyway my question is two fold - are there any others who have been won over by T20 over the last 13 years, and the opposite - has the shortest format drawn anyone in to Test cricket who previously had no interest in?
 

Hurricane

Hall of Fame Member
I find it frighteningly insulting to watch Dale Steyn/ James Anderson/ Stuart Broad/ Tim Southee/ Trent Boult / {Insert name of top test match bowler here} be tonked around and butchered into the stand on some barren grassless pitch with a white ball that will only swing for the first 8-9 deliveries of the match. I can only imagine the closest thing in real life to it would be watching some guy called Ray who is good in shop class pick up your 16 year old daughter for a date driving a red V8.

However if teams are going to go New Zealand's and England's route and pick specialist seamers for the format who I don't care about the opposition batsman gaining a psychological advantage over then I can sit back and enjoy a match. Give me a team with McLeakinruns and Milne opening the bowling and I am happy.
 

Gob

International Coach
I find it frighteningly insulting to watch Dale Steyn/ James Anderson/ Stuart Broad/ Tim Southee/ Trent Boult / {Insert name of top test match bowler here} be tonked around and butchered into the stand on some barren grassless pitch with a white ball that will only swing for the first 8-9 deliveries of the match. I can only imagine the closest thing in real life to it would be watching some guy called Ray who is good in shop class pick up your 16 year old daughter for a date driving a red V8.

However if teams are going to go New Zealand's and England's route and pick specialist seamers for the format who I don't care about the opposition batsman gaining a psychological advantage over then I can sit back and enjoy a match. Give me a team with McLeakinruns and Milne opening the bowling and I am happy.
Tim Southee is what now?

For the thread, would enjoy seeing big sixers (who doesn't) but would never take it as anything meaningful
 

Days of Grace

International Captain
It may just be New Zealand doing well but I have really enjoyed this tournament. It's good to look forward to a cricket match and not feel guilty about sitting for an entire day to watch it. T20 is the future and I think 50 over cricket will be done away with gradually. This tournament has shown me that bowlers can work over batsmen and that batsmen themselves can build an innings rather than just slog from ball one.

The one thing I would change to T20 to make it even more balanced between bat and ball is to give bowlers 5 overs instead of 4. Most teams pick a 4 man attack for test cricket with an optional 5th. I can't see why that wouldn't work for T20.
 

vcs

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I first fell in love with ODIs as a 10 year old kid, those coloured uniforms at the '92 WC were amazing. Then Tests grew on me. I think it takes only one incredible experience to fall in love with Tests. For me, it started with staying up all night to watch Lara's 153* while I was supposed to be doing a Math assignment. Awesome.. after that I understood that a great Test match might come across very rarely, but it is an experience that you never ever forget. Then India vs. Australia happened in 2001, India became decent away from home for a bit, Ashes 2005 happened, Chennai 2008.. I can almost recollect exactly what I was doing when those matches played out.. even if I was only following through scorecards.

There have been some great ODIs and T20s over the years that were loads of fun to watch at the time, but very few of them take precedence in my fondest cricket-watching memories. It doesn't stop me from loving and enjoying all forms of cricket though.
 

Biryani Pillow

U19 Vice-Captain
I can look at a scorecard from a Test that I watched in the 1970s and remember things about it - be it a single incident or a passage of play.

I would struggle to do that with a T20 game I saw one week ago.

And no, that's not due to befuddled memory :@

T20 remains a snack compared to the 3 course meal of a good Test match.
 

91Jmay

International Coach
It may just be New Zealand doing well but I have really enjoyed this tournament. It's good to look forward to a cricket match and not feel guilty about sitting for an entire day to watch it. T20 is the future and I think 50 over cricket will be done away with gradually. This tournament has shown me that bowlers can work over batsmen and that batsmen themselves can build an innings rather than just slog from ball one.

The one thing I would change to T20 to make it even more balanced between bat and ball is to give bowlers 5 overs instead of 4. Most teams pick a 4 man attack for test cricket with an optional 5th. I can't see why that wouldn't work for T20.
Not sure that would balance it that much. Would load up on specialist batsmen.
 

Coronis

Cricketer Of The Year
I do like seeing lots of 6's, reminds me of Stick Cricket. Though I get that from ODI's tbh, and T20's require so little skill. Ido enjoy watching Big Bash with mates while pre drinking though.
 

Niall

International Coach
ODI cricket is bottom of the pile for me, I used to be hugely test orientated but as the years have passed, their really isn't that a huge difference in preference regarding tests and t20. Obviously a quality test is amazing e.g the doomed Kohli chase in Australia where all three results were feasible in the final hour, but sadly we also get a lot of one sided blowouts and a test where the result is pretty much established early on which is the absolute pits for me.

T20 has plenty of one sided matches, but at least they are brief especially when compared to the abysmal West Indies tour of Australia.
 

GIMH

Norwood's on Fire
Think the above covers it. A close Test is the epitome of pretty much all sports. A close T20 is great and then you go have dinner.

On the flipside. A ****e T20 is ****e and then you go have dinner. A ****e Test is like reading Jono's autobiography; what's the ****ing point?
 

Kirkut

International Regular
When I had first started following cricket regularly in 2006, I had no idea about the history of the game. I used to consider Test matches as a 'pass time' or a 'practice game' and not the real format, because it didn't have a World Cup. It took me 4 years to understand the depth of test matches.
 

Dawood Ahmad

U19 Vice-Captain
The solution of the problem varies with people,

Those who have cricket as their first preference and can sacrifice all their activities at a larger scale, will love test cricket more than t20 because it requires greater amount of sense, time and attention. But others, who watch cricket only because they are bored of their life, will go for t20 cricket.
 
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Dawood Ahmad

U19 Vice-Captain
objection:T20 cricket is more popular than test cricket.

Answer:The credit of the popularity of T20s goes to tests because if there had been no test cricket in the beginning and T20s had come out of nothing, no one would look at them.
 

watson

Banned
Playing T20 demands a great amount of skill with both bat and ball. This is because batsman have to make extraordinary shots, and bowlers have to deliver a wide variety of deliveries with pin point accuracy. It is this new skill set that gives T20 its attraction and resonance.

To say that T20 is nothing more than 'hit and giggle', and therefore lacks importance due to lack of difficulty is completely wrong.

So yeah, I've been 'won over'.
 

Dawood Ahmad

U19 Vice-Captain
To say that T20 is nothing more than 'hit and giggle', and therefore lacks importance due to lack of difficulty is completely wrong.
Human brain can derive the following meanings from this statement

1. Lack of difficulty is not necessarily a reason for lack of importance.
2. Lack of difficulty is a condition for the lack of importance but this is not found in T20s, so this condition for the lacknof importance is not fulfilled. Thus, we ggive importance to T20s.

3. Lack of difficulty has little impact on importance than other factors.

I think that none of the above 3 is important because "importance" has not much to do with "betterness" and "goodness" eapecially in cricket.
 
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Daemon

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wat



I'm basically a sucker for all kinds of cricket. If they streamed weekend club games I'd probably spend ages watching those too.
 

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