ICC had proposed the idea of reducing the Test matches from traditional five days to four-day affairs and even had two trials as well with South Africa beating Zimbabwe and England surviving a scare against Ireland.

However, not many former and current cricketers have supported ICC’s attempt to get support for the four-day Test matches. Former India batsman VVS Laxman also expressed his displeasure and said he was not a fan of this idea.

"I am not really a fan of this four-day Test cricket, five days fits perfect because it gets more results and reducing it the four days will not achieve the desired results according to me," Laxman said.  

Kumble takes stand against proposal to mandate four-day Test cricket

Laxman also suggested doing away with the concept of toss, especially on away tours. "Another point aspect is the toss, especially during the overseas tour the captain from the visiting side gets to decide what he wants to choose because we want to see teams traveling and winning matches on away turf which makes it more interesting for spectators," he added.

The ICC cricket committee is hoping to have four-day Tests as part of the World Test Championship from 2023. This stemmed from ICC's increasing demand for event windows, the explosion of domestic T20 leagues, BCCI's demands for its own ample share of bilateral calendar space, and the costs of staging Test series are all said to be the factors contributing to the move.

However, cricketers like Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Gautam Gambhir, and Coach Mickey Arthur have objected to the proposed idea. However former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan has supported the proposal.  

Indian team head coach Ravi Shastri termed the concept as nonsense and mentioned that if the world body wants to trim the current format, the top six Test-playing nations shouldn't be included in the experiment.

(IANS inputs)