Players opposed to four-day Tests, fear it will result in more ‘meaningless cricket’
The move towards four-day Tests appears to be gaining momentum but the players don’t support the concept and aren’t buying the argument it will reduce their workload.
Cricket
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An average 46 days a year, the exact length of this year’s World Cup, would be opened up if the controversial push for four-day Tests becomes a reality after 2023.
Discussions around mandating four-day Tests have become an official agenda item for International Cricket Council meetings to be held in Dubai from March 27-31 amid growing opposition.
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Critics include some of the game’s loudest voices, including Indian captain Virat Kohli, Sachin Tendulkar and former Australian captain Ricky Ponting.
Now the chairman of the Federation of International Cricketers Associations, Tony Irish, who also heads up the English Players’ Association, has demanded more information about why the move is being floated.
He said all players were against the addition of any more “meaningless cricket”.
Many players believe commentary around reducing player workload is mischievous given recent revelations of a new, yearly, white-ball tournament being added to an already packed calendar in the 2023-31 fixture cycle.
The introduction of two new Test playing nations, Ireland and Afghanistan, will also impact the crush of matches around the world.
“It is particularly important for us, and the players, to understand how any additional calendar space in the playing schedule would be used,” Irish said.
“Making a fundamental change simply in order to provide calendar space to fill with additional or meaningless cricket is clearly not something we can support. Cricket’s global structure desperately needs clarity, rather than further confusion.”
“From our discussions with players around the world, and our global survey data, it is clear that there is currently a lot of negative sentiment, within the global collective of players, towards such a significant change to the game’s most traditional format.
“Until such a time as we and the players are provided with the full picture and compelling reasons for change, we remain supportive of five-day Test cricket, and would expect significant player resistance if a shift to that is imposed on players by the ICC and/or Boards.”
In 2019, only 39 Tests were played around the world given it was a World Cup year.
That World Cup went for 46 days, the exact amount of time a move to four-day Tests would have freed up over the previous four years.
Former Sri Lankan captain Mahela Jawayardene, who sits on the ICC Cricket Committee which will discuss the proposal, said he was against four-day Tests.
“We will discuss it in the meeting (in March), and I don’t know what will happen after that but my personal opinion is that it should remain five days. I would not want any change,” he said.