The debate on whether Test cricket matches should be made four days will certainly raise its head again going by the current Test series taking place in England and in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka have lost the first two Tests of a three-match series to India inside four days and in Old Blighty barring the third Test between England and South Africa which went the full distance of five days the other three Tests in the four-match series all ended in four days.
There are factors for and against making Test cricket four days. For instance the spate of injuries suffered by cricketers especially bowlers can be reduced if Test cricket is played four days. The bowlers who sometimes have to take on a heavy workload could always do with an extra day off and use it as part of their recovery period between matches.
Consider the injuries that have taken heavy toll on the bowlers of both series that are currently on. South Africa who lost the Test series 3-1 to England didn’t have the full services of their key all-rounder Vernon Philander who struggled to make a comeback from an ankle injury and viral ailment. From the England’s side they missed the services of all-rounder Chris Woakes (side strain) and Jake Ball (knee strain). England’s two key bowlers James Anderson missed the Chennai Test against India last December because of ‘body soreness’ in his ankle and shoulder and Stuart Broad almost didn’t nearly make it to the England Test squad against South Africa following a heal injury.
From the Sri Lankan view point they have lost through injuries fast bowlers Suranga Lakmal and Nuwan Pradeep and for the upcoming third Test starting at Pallekele on Saturday their current leading wicket-taker in Test cricket Rangana Herath with a sore back having taken on the burden of bowling 162 overs in the last three Tests against Zimbabwe and India within a period of three weeks.
The advent of Twenty20 cricket has made batsmen score at a helter-skelter rate even in Test cricket so that a team scoring 300-350 runs a day has become quite common. In the ongoing series against Sri Lanka, India scored 399-3 in 90 overs on the first day of the Galle Test and at the SSC they made 344-3 off 90 overs at the end of the first day. In the England-South Africa series, England scored 357-5 in 87 overs on the first day of the first Test at Lord’s, South Africa 309-6 in 90 on the first day of the second Test at Nottingham, 308 was scored on the second day of the third Test at the Oval and 322 on the second day of the Manchester Test. These figures give an indication how the scoring rates have changed in Test cricket over the past decade or so.
By scoring at such a fast rate – nearly 3½ to 4 runs an over, the batting sides are giving their bowlers enough time to bowl the other side out twice inside four days.
Former England Test opener Geoff Boycott said in his Cowdrey Lecture of 2005 for the MCC: “We should change to four-day Tests of seven hours each day and we should guarantee 15 overs an hour. That’s 105 overs a day, 420 in a match. A large percentage of games finish inside the allotted time and the 450 overs aren’t needed. So I think we need to concertina the game, to concentrate the action while losing none of the skills. I can hear players saying, ‘We don’t want seven hours,’ to which I’d reply, ‘Well, hang on a minute, in recent times you have been doing seven-hour days because you don’t bowl your overs quickly enough’.”
In a recent interview he said, “My views have not changed. I had been doing TV all over the world for TWI from 1990, and I was seeing crowds going down. I think that a sport that doesn’t put bums on seats is in serious difficulty. I said the administrators should do something to help. Youngsters want everything quicker. They want a phone, the internet… life has always changed, and cricket has always changed. There have been weak administrators. We now have 13 overs an hour. We have five-day Tests, 75 per cent of which finish in four days. You don’t need five days.”
It goes without saying that Test cricket in Sri Lanka does not draw the crowd that one-day cricket or Twenty20 cricket does. It is nearly the same in Asian countries like India and Bangladesh where one-day cricket draws a larger audience than the five-day game.
However one has to look at the other side of it as well. Four day Tests would mean one less day of broadcasting and could affect the bottom line for all parties. Broadcasters are also becoming irritated with endless shots of half-empty stands, sights that send a not-so-subliminal message to viewers at home that they, too, might find something better to do than watch.
The cricket committee of the ICC had a ‘significant debate’ on it last year and broadly discussed whether five days had become too long to retain the interest of supporters, sponsors and broadcasters. But no major decision was reached although a recent research has revealed that 41.5 per cent of matches have ended before the fifth day in the last five years. The debate goes on.
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