With the window for T20 leagues keeps getting longer, former India head coach Ravi Shastri recently called for the reduction of bilateral T20Is while giving importance to World Cups.
Now, Shastri has come up with a radical suggestion to keep Test cricket relevant, saying that only the top six teams should play against each other to give the traditional format some boost.
“You cannot have 12 teams or ten teams. You keep the top six, keep the quality and respect quality over quantity. That’s the only way you open a window for other cricket to be played. Expand teams in one-day cricket and T20 cricket if you want the game to spread. But Test cricket will have to reduce the number of teams that play," Shastri said while commentating for Sky Sports.
According to him, franchise leagues will be more significant in the future like football and the international matches in shorter formats will be restricted to World Cups only.
“The bottom line, it’s the football model. You’ve got the EPL, La Liga, the German league, the South America Copa America. In the future it’s going to be like that, you’ll have one World Cup, the big one and then the rest of it will be all different leagues happening around the world," he stated.
Further elaborating his idea of quality over quantity, Ravi Shastri said there should be a qualification benchmark that every team needs to follow to play Test cricket.
“Whether it’s India, Australia or England you have to qualify for red-ball series if you want to be around to play Test match cricket."
“Then it doesn’t matter if England doesn’t go to the West Indies, or West Indies come to England. If they’re in the top six, they play, but if they’re not in the top six they don’t play,” he said.
While Shastri’s co-commentators opposed his views fearing that it would be counterproductive to the game, the former India all-rounder justified his point by saying that if the opposition doesn’t have the same quality then the superior team will finish the game in two or three days which is not good for the broadcasters.
“Absolutely. Because what is Test cricket? It tests you and for that you need quality. If there’s no quality then who’s going to watch it? You’re going to have three-day games, two-day games if the opposition is not right. If you have countries who have never played Test cricket and then you say ‘come to India’ or ‘come to England’, in bowler-friendly conditions the game’s over in two days, two-and-a-half days. And you’ve taken money from the broadcaster for five days. So he’s going to be unhappy, the fans are going to be unhappy and the standard is going to go down."
“Quality is important and in that format of the game extremely important for cricket to survive in the future,” said Shastri.
