Is the Popularity of Test Cricket on the Wane? , Monday, July 20, 2009 at 1:05 AM, in

It must be remembered that there are several types of cricket currently being played at many different levels even internationally. These include test cricket, one-day cricket and most recently, Twenty-twenty cricket has ceased the imagination of even those who do not traditionally follow cricket. It has been suggested that it would be much better to have fewer international matches, a smaller ICC with less money at stake and that this would rekindle the interest in test cricket to make it a truly special event.
To examine the reason for the seismic shift in cricket is to those outside the traditional cricket world, consider for a moment how Cricket is played. Two teams of eleven players each, which take turns to bowl a hard-leather ball. It follows a complicated system of 42 rules difficult to the outsider to understand. Traditionally test cricket is played in white clothes and with red balls.


In the limited over form of the game more drama is brought to the spectacle by the wearing of brightly colored team kits. Test cricket seems inordinately long, up to six hours a day with breaks for refreshment whereas the shorter versions of the game can be all over within a day and sometimes within hours. Little surprise therefore that these limited over games are marching onwards.
Test cricket is the highest regarded form of the game despite the inroads being made by the new forms but it has to be conceded that one-day international cricket is now more popular amongst the wider sporting world. The sport of cricket has been played around the world in one form or another for 800 years. It has emerged as the universal common language of South Asia an ambassador if you like to a world beyond cricket.
Cricket has to be prepared to embrace change in order to appeal to a broader audience it already spans the generations, with a little more flexibility it can ensure that the traditional battles like the 2009 Ashes Test series continues to flourish for many decades to come

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