‘Imminent death’: Why Test cricket only has itself to blame for downfall

The ugly reality surrounding the longer format of cricket was laid bare this week with only one thing to blame for the damning downfall.

COMMENT

This week saw South Africa and the West Indies as the latest Test nations to die, but it’s okay because at least the New York Strikers are killing it in Dubai.

Yes, Test cricket is plunging asunder at an alarming pace, with the traditional format sinking under subcontinent supremos and their love of T20 cricket and money.

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While Boxing Day crowds at the MCG and Centurion for the Proteas v India match were nothing to sneeze at, it’s the state of squads named for upcoming tours that prove T20 has sunken its claws beyond the point of no return.

With South Africa and the West Indies due to tour New Zealand and Australia respectively in coming weeks, both have named squads full of blokes lucky to have a Cricinfo profile.

This is due to both focusing on the 20 over format, with South Africa prioritising its domestic league and the Windies long ago repurposing Test cricket for unearthing patient techniques and warehousing them as far away from its white-ball programs as possible.

Test cricket is dying an imminent death. (Photo by PHILL MAGAKOE / AFP)

As we know, such cash-strapped nations are overlooking Test cricket simply because it no longer turns a dollar, thus leaving them beholden to the rampant rupees of T20 and resulting in an evergrowing trend of top-liners abandoning test caps in favour of garish franchise pastels.

And as these upcoming tours are played out with all the passion of obligatory marital lovemaking, it will further confirm the worst.

That being, Test cricket is now irrelevant unless it involves Australia, India and/or England.

While the Ashes perennially thrive on prestige and India series on inexhaustible appetite and ex-pats, anything else is now only watched by diehards, family and degenerate gamblers.

This has created the ironic quandary where the only way to fund poorer nations is for Australia to ignore them all and play England and India on loop, which we do.

Sure, this model means we’ll be fine, but can it maintain Test cricket as a truly global product by propping up the lesser nations with Ashes money?

Hell no.

Warner is getting out at the right time. (Photo by Mark Evans/Getty Images)

Simply put, if dwindling crowds and the growing spate of player withdrawals is any indication, we’ll need at least 250 packed MCG’s a day to prevent Test cricket falling below the European Cricket League.

But who is to blame for the longer-form’s imminent death?

Sadly, it’s Test cricket itself.

With its abysmally slow over rates and lack of imagination towards bad light and rain – that which legislates grown men to flee for cover in a squall and to take lunch once it clears – the Test format can forget about entering the 21st century because it’s barely departed the 18th.

Regrettably, this is evident even in a stronghold like Australia.

With poor crowds becoming the norm outside of marquee series, even a golden generation of success is no longer enough to capture Australia’s imagination, mainly because five days is too long and non-sexy nations don’t rile us up as much as Stuart Broad’s latest podcast conniption.

What does it all mean?

With TV money elevating the shorter form to primary status, red ball cricket will continue sinking in a schedule waterlogged in T20 and dragging down the less-resourced nations with it.

The end is near. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)

And even though it will never die locally, the format itself can’t be saved by Australia’s stars alone … unless Mitchell Starc wants to fund it with IPL money, which we’re definitely open to.

It appears the only way to save Test cricket is to relent to Indian cable TV and transform the five days in to 15 straight T20’s.

Although this isn’t a certainty either.

With the BCCI reportedly eyeing off the September-October period for a new T10 tournament, not only will Test cricket soon be dead, so will ODI’s and even T20.

Projecting forward, this means the only ‘long-form’ cricket will be TikTok Test Matches, with the Ashes to be fought out across five reels.

– Dane Eldridge is a warped cynic yearning for the glory days of rugby league, a time when the sponges were magic and the Mondays were mad. He’s never strapped on a boot in his life, and as such, should be taken with a grain of salt.