Test contests have brought dignity back to cricket
ow things come a full circle and nothing really is permanent — not the good, not the old and definitely not the new. The good old Test format in cricket is, indeed, an example of this wonderful lack of permanence in life. Buried alive under the weight of the zanniest and shortest forms of emerging cricket over the past decade, this real gentlemen’s format which comes with the engaging vintage of leisureliness, has made a concerted comeback. What is delightful is that it has done so all on its own steam, sporting undiluted performance in the middle as opposed to coming up on the props of lucre, entertainment and packaging.
And ushering this welcome change were no other than home teamsters India and, now the No 2 Test team in the world, England — both underdogs in the real sense of the term (especially in away series) but both bringing back this format to glory — a format which was hitherto restricted to the imagination of purists who are difficult to find in the slush of IPL and Twenty20.
In a decade when we all talked of the death of Tests, the five-day original not only showed how to count life, not by quantity but by quality. Not many nations, like India which was leading the revolution of cricket with its financial clout and its shifting base to a domestic league so popular that it made a pitch to be included in the ICC’s FTP, were into Test matches.
Tests were no longer money spinners or crowd drawers. They did not show up well on TV, especially among the sponsors and their moneybags. And they certainly were not throwing up interesting results that could catch the imagination of the public as well as the sports administrators to stand up and take note of their viability.
Till the Ashes series in 2005 in which England showed why and how Test is the real test. They lost to Australia (predictable) at the Lord’s opener to the five-match series but then came back (very stunningly) in the second Test at Edgbaston winning by just two runs, something not in the DNA of Test cricket. After a draw at Manchester, it again trounced the perennial champions at Trent Bridge, this time by a touch and go three wickets in a match poised so delicately that it would have given a complex to the pace of a last-ball T20 thriller. A 2-1 win meant something much more than a mere England comeback — more importantly, it had brought back this format of cricket to public imagination — a task carried forward by a whole lot of exciting rivalries and contests in the years to follow.
Such has been the rise and rise of Test cricket, and thankfully so, that Tata Sky reported a record rush of subscription queries after Ten Sports decided to cash in on the Test season and split its channel into two separate ones. Ten Cricket drew in record revenue for the service providers and that in itself spoke of how the five-day wonders are not just catching on but remarking the constricted space on the various tour programmes.
Only 170 Tests in the last five years as opposed to a whopping 468 ODIs and the fast encroaching T20s. But then there was that something more in Tests that took the first cut — there were campaigns in the middle which won missions impossible, there were contests between the bat and the ball that lent pulsating moments to dreariness, there were controversies that elbowed into prime-time space on television and, most importantly, there were results which took your breath away.
Indeed, if Tests faced the spectre of death this decade, they also worked relentlessly to instill life into a deadend format — a paradox only those playing elevens in their whites could have scripted in a heady mix of grit and flamboyance. Yes, you could say the pace of T20s and the ODIs which changed many a batting mindset from seasoned to explosive helped lend some to Tests too. But, in the end, be the Sydney fiasco between India and Australia, the Oval row between Pakistan and England, the Sachin-Steyn contest in the latest showstopper series in South Africa, or the British rule in Australia, Test is no longer a just a momentary flash of life in death — it is a force that will yet again metamorphose cricket — hopefully, this time in the right direction, drawing the flashbulbs to game, not the auctions and the cheerleaders and the telecast rights.
Source: Sunday Pioneer, January 9, 2011
And ushering this welcome change were no other than home teamsters India and, now the No 2 Test team in the world, England — both underdogs in the real sense of the term (especially in away series) but both bringing back this format to glory — a format which was hitherto restricted to the imagination of purists who are difficult to find in the slush of IPL and Twenty20.
In a decade when we all talked of the death of Tests, the five-day original not only showed how to count life, not by quantity but by quality. Not many nations, like India which was leading the revolution of cricket with its financial clout and its shifting base to a domestic league so popular that it made a pitch to be included in the ICC’s FTP, were into Test matches.
Tests were no longer money spinners or crowd drawers. They did not show up well on TV, especially among the sponsors and their moneybags. And they certainly were not throwing up interesting results that could catch the imagination of the public as well as the sports administrators to stand up and take note of their viability.
Till the Ashes series in 2005 in which England showed why and how Test is the real test. They lost to Australia (predictable) at the Lord’s opener to the five-match series but then came back (very stunningly) in the second Test at Edgbaston winning by just two runs, something not in the DNA of Test cricket. After a draw at Manchester, it again trounced the perennial champions at Trent Bridge, this time by a touch and go three wickets in a match poised so delicately that it would have given a complex to the pace of a last-ball T20 thriller. A 2-1 win meant something much more than a mere England comeback — more importantly, it had brought back this format of cricket to public imagination — a task carried forward by a whole lot of exciting rivalries and contests in the years to follow.
Such has been the rise and rise of Test cricket, and thankfully so, that Tata Sky reported a record rush of subscription queries after Ten Sports decided to cash in on the Test season and split its channel into two separate ones. Ten Cricket drew in record revenue for the service providers and that in itself spoke of how the five-day wonders are not just catching on but remarking the constricted space on the various tour programmes.
Only 170 Tests in the last five years as opposed to a whopping 468 ODIs and the fast encroaching T20s. But then there was that something more in Tests that took the first cut — there were campaigns in the middle which won missions impossible, there were contests between the bat and the ball that lent pulsating moments to dreariness, there were controversies that elbowed into prime-time space on television and, most importantly, there were results which took your breath away.
Indeed, if Tests faced the spectre of death this decade, they also worked relentlessly to instill life into a deadend format — a paradox only those playing elevens in their whites could have scripted in a heady mix of grit and flamboyance. Yes, you could say the pace of T20s and the ODIs which changed many a batting mindset from seasoned to explosive helped lend some to Tests too. But, in the end, be the Sydney fiasco between India and Australia, the Oval row between Pakistan and England, the Sachin-Steyn contest in the latest showstopper series in South Africa, or the British rule in Australia, Test is no longer a just a momentary flash of life in death — it is a force that will yet again metamorphose cricket — hopefully, this time in the right direction, drawing the flashbulbs to game, not the auctions and the cheerleaders and the telecast rights.
Source: Sunday Pioneer, January 9, 2011
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