The World Test Championship final is set to be the most watched five-dayer in the history of cricket’s oldest format but there’s a prevailing sense that traditionalists are fighting a losing battle.
With the T20 revolution irrevocably changing cricket’s global landscape, the ICC is railing against the light by pumping up “the Ultimate Test” as a means to give the sport’s traditional concept additional meaning.
But apart from the two final combatants – Australia and India – and its host nation, England, the rest of the cricketing world is putting less and less emphasis on Tests or appear powerless to stop their best players from prioritising T20 deals over much-lower central contracts with their national body.
Just last week, Ireland’s high performance director Richard Holdsworth admitted that playing a Test at Lord’s against England was no longer the pinnacle for their team – qualifying for the T20 and ODI World Cups was a greater priority for them because of the financial windfalls they would deliver to the emerging cricketing nation.
The Irish rested their best bowler, Josh Little, because he was coming off an IPL campaign with Gujarat Titans to ensure he was right for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers in Zimbabwe.
Not surprisingly, they were flogged by a three-quarter-strength England side by 10 wickets after only just making the hosts bat a second time after they had lost just four wickets while posting 524 in their first innings.
David Warner edges and is caught by KS Bharat on day one of the World Test Championship Final. (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
The match was scheduled to be a four-day affair – that proved to be optimistic as it was one more than necessary.
Even though Ireland and Afghanistan have increased the ICC’s number of Test-playing nations in recent years to 12, the actual number of countries still able to make the format profitable and worthwhile in the current climate is limited to the aforementioned big three.
Will the World Test Championship biannual format be a success if it’s basically a triangular tournament between Australia, England and India, the only three nations in the Future Tours Programme who will play five-match series.
Test cricket had a triangular tournament – featuring Australia, England and South Africa – in 1912, it doesn’t need another psuedo version.
The WTC standings are determined by percentages rather than the number of wins every two years and New Zealand did manage to not only make the inaugural final two years ago (when Australia cost themselves a spot due to slow over rates) but lift the trophy with a stirring win over India.
But with the likes of Trent Boult now opting out of a central contract so that he can freelance in the T20 leagues and play for the Black Caps when it suits, a precedent is being set on how cricketers from the smaller nations are likely to operate when the telephone number contracts are sent their way from the IPL and the various leagues popping up around the globe that are being bankrolled by the Indian franchises.
The WTC is baked into the Future Tours Programme until the end of 2027 but you can forgive international cricket fans for wondering whether it will be a permanent fixture on the calendar or become yet another ICC event like the Champions Trophy ODI tournament that held varying importance for 20 years, was then scrapped and has now reappeared on the horizon for 2025 and ‘29.
David Warner floated the idea that the final should be a three-match series. That will never happen. It was hard enough in the current crowded calendar to cram this match in between the IPL and the Ashes, fitting in three is near on impossible.
India coach Rahul Dravid said he wanted to see more Test cricket worldwide but the reality is the smaller nations are cutting back to fit more white-ball games on their programs, particularly their own T20 leagues, like South Africa.
They will spend fewer days playing international cricket in the next FTP cycle than all the other full member nations apart from Afghanistan, Ireland and Zimbabwe.
Even with the WTC format being based around percentages rather than a volume of Tests, a nation like South Africa that was the world’s top-ranked team only a handful of years ago is going to find it impossible to compete with the big dogs if they play so infrequently and their local players are incentivised to devote their attention to the T20 realm.
Test matches are becoming cricket’s equivalent of going to the movies – something you do on occasions but you have to make an effort because it’s a big commitment.
ODIs were the videos and DVDs – became big in the 1980s, quality got better in the ‘90s and early in the century but got superseded by a more convenient option.
Which leaves T20s as cricket’s streaming service – its popularity is growing exponentially with new subscription companies/T20 leagues popping up quicker than anyone can keep track.
This World Test Championship final and the ensuing Ashes series should put Test cricket in its rightul place as the showpiece for the sport over the next seven weeks.
Then it will be back to the reality that it will continue to slowly fade into the background in all but a few pockets of the globe.
The glass half full outlook is that more people will be watching cricket than ever before in the next decade as T20 popularity surges and more nations will have a chance to compete with the traditional powerhouses in the high-variance shortest format.
However, the ICC needs to do more to ensure there is incentive for Test cricket to at least remain as is rather than shrink in prestige, not just for the next few years but in perpetuity.
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