The death of test cricket and its impact on the quality of cricket
It’s quite rare nowadays for someone to flaunt test cricket as their favorite form of the game. I consider myself among those rare species. Test cricket is the original and the most challenging form of cricket. It’s a perfect platform to showcase the skills and resilience which is diminishing in value as the game keeps getting shortened. Nowadays, it’s not about how good your technique is or how perfect your cricketing mind is, if you have enough muscles to send the ball-over, you’ll be considered a good player. Thanks to the IPL and other major world leagues, you may also get a million-dollar contract thus, perfect technique, resilience, quality pace bowling may seem nothing but a joke to you. Why struggle for five straight days defending the swinging bowls or bowling consistent line and lengths when a gimmick action or a superficial technique may do the job for you.
Back in the golden period of cricket(1990–2010), despite Austalia’s overall dominance from the late ’90s till 2010, quality players weren’t scarce. All the top 8 teams, even zimbabwe was more competitive. Countries like Australia, Pakistan, New Zealand, and South Africa had an amazing pool of fast bowlers while India, Srilanka was among the spin powerhouse. Pakistan, Srilanka, South Africa, and West Indies were far better and challenging than their present counterparts. So, what led to this sudden decline of test cricket and thus the overall standard of cricket?
Well, the answer is not so simple. While West Indians cricket started declining in the ’90s, the mishap in the other three started in the latter half of this decade. While the efflux of the legendary players may seem a common reason, the lack of quality players made filling the voids impossible. With the rise in popularity of league cricket and its money and entirely different skill demands, the paradigm shifted from the elegant cover drive to the funky switch hit.
The once top-eight has now reduced to mere top-four with the ‘ENIA’ consolidating their position. Also, the large chunk of great players of the game has also been reduced to the handfuls. The t20 cricket is all set to become the synonym of the cricket with the real form getting buried deep soon in the ashes of the dead test cricket.
