Future of Test Cricket: Dying or Evolving?
Test cricket is the soul of cricket and the real test of a player’s skills. The decline in the test cricket viewership and audience, and broadcasters is a major issue in the era of T20 cricket leagues like IPL, BBL, and PSL. The most debatable topic is the “future of Test cricket: Dying or Evolving?” The modern fans and audience like instant entertainment in the form of a shorter format of cricket, mostly in T20 cricket. This trend raises a hot question that “Will Test cricket survive in the modern era?”
The first Test match, which is the longest format of cricket, was contested between Australia and England in Melbourne in 1877. Test cricket is known as the game of gentlemen. It is the real test of a player’s skills, resilience, temperament, endurance, and psychological awareness about the game in pressure situations, having played unlimited overs.
Test cricket in the age of T20 Leagues is losing popularity and seems irrelevant to the audience. T20 leagues offer world players a huge amount of money, like in IPL, and they attract star-skilled players to enhance their fan base and viewership, and also to make money through sponsors. Because shorter formats of cricket entertain the audience more than the long format of cricket, like Test cricket. The popularity of entertaining T20 leagues is the major reason for the decline of test cricket.
The audience enjoys a shorter format of cricket because they don’t have time to watch a 5-day-long match and wait for its result. The audience needs immediate satisfaction, like in the form of shorter formats. This can answer the question that “Why is test cricket losing its popularity?”
The future of test cricket depends on the audience, whether they want it or not. The audience of Test cricket is declining, and this trend shows that the future of red ball cricket is in danger. Nowadays, it seems like Test cricket is just the game of the so-called Big Three: Australia, India, and England. The people of these three nations still love Test cricket. The stadiums of these nations remain full during Test matches, especially during matches between Australia and England, like the Ashes series. The people of these nations show passion for their country. They produce great Test cricket players. But the young audience of Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the West Indies shows less interest in Test cricket, and sometimes it looks like “Is Test cricket still relevant” for these nations? The busy schedules of players in the shorter formats like T20 leagues worldwide are the reason behind playing less Test cricket by nations. Unlike the Big Three, they have less skilled Test players, which makes them less competitive in international contests. Having weak Test players is also the reason for low fan interest in test cricket. The cricket fan’s behavior shows they need fast cricket in shorter formats in this era. The huge money offers in T20 cricket leagues for players indicate the impact of T20 on Test cricket.
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The interest of players in T20 cricket is due to huge money offers from franchises and fans’ engagement due to the instant results of matches. This has reduced viewership and the interest of players in Test cricket. These are also the challenges for Test cricket in future.
The Test cricket viewership trends define the way and future of Test cricket. These trends will also define the way that the traditional cricket format of the game will be successful in the future or not in the age of T20 cricket. These trends can be enhanced through various careful considerations and effective steps of the international cricket community to make the future of Test cricket better for the young audience. The Test cricket format sustainability is very important to save the old version of cricket, where cricket-playing nations are judged on the basis of resilience and skilled world-class players who strain their bodies by playing five days.
The international cricket community took various steps to promote this old and traditional version of cricket to save the essence of cricket.
The ICC World Test Championship is one of the great steps to regulate Test cricket. This tournament gives motivation to Test cricket playing nations to have distinction and unique recognition to be the champions of Test cricket, like other international cricket formats. This is a huge step to solve the problem that how to save Test cricket. This step is enhancing the audience and fan base to support their team to win the ICC World Test Championship title. This tournament is played by nine top-ranked Test-playing nations during the period of two years and the top two teams at the end of 2 years duration play the final for the title. The first edition of the World Test Championship was played from 2019-2021. New Zealand was the champion of this edition. The second 2021-2023 edition’s title was won by Australia. Both times, India was the runner-up in this event. The 3rd edition 2023-2025 final will be hosted at Lord’s. Each of the nine nations fights for 2 years to make it to the final of the ICC World Test Championship. This step gives meaning to Test cricket. This urges broadcasters and sponsors to pay attention to Test cricket due to the improving number of audience. This also guides us to understand that “Will Test cricket survive in modern era?” This is the Test cricket evolution, not the decline.
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Secondly, the introduction of Day-Night Test cricket matches is also a great step to promote the game. This eases the audience to watch key moments of the Test match after their work hours, like ODIs and T20 formats. The Day-Night Test cricket game was launched with the introduction of the pink ball. This step is also increasing the ratio of the audience.
The use of technology like good resulting cameras, ultra-edge, and hotspot also helps the viewers to understand the key turning points of the game.
There is still more need for improvements to popularize test cricket again. There should be proper fundraising campaigns for the support of weak cricket Boards despite the Big Three for the promotion of Test cricket. This will motivate players to play Test cricket in response to the huge money offers like T20 leagues. Also, there should be proper regulation and management of schedules for the ICC as well as T20 league events throughout the year to have time to play Test cricket. This will improve the future of Test cricket.
Nowadays, empty stadiums apparently show the decline of Test cricket, and this is creating ambiguity that “Is Test cricket dying?” But key modifications and careful considerations of the international cricket community in the form of ICC World Test Championship, day and night Test contests by introducing the pink ball and the use of technology are improving the audience of Test cricket. These improvements show that Test cricket is evolving, not dying.