Former India captain Anil Kumble thinks most players still want to do well in Tests despite the increasing lure of T20 cricket in recent times. Kumble, who also heads the ICC cricket committee, will be a discussion in March over governing body’s proposal to reduce Tests to four days from five days.
“I think everybody wants to play Test cricket, that’s very clear. The generation of cricketers certainly want five-day cricket and that’s something very obvious,” he said.
“There is some challenge in keeping everyone focused and pushed towards playing domestic competition specially Ranji Trophy,” he shared at the launch of former India opener and current head coach of women’s national team W V Raman’s book ‘The Winning Sixer: Leadership Lessons To Master’.
However, he said that players playing all three formats are only going to get tougher in the near future.
“Very few players are common to formats and it’s getting lesser and lesser. But I don’t think there is any dearth of people wanting to play the longer format. I think everybody wants to, they realise that’s the biggest challenge and I’m sure that’s going to be the case for a long time,” Anil Kumble added.
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Meanwhile, many players have opposed the idea of four-day Test, including India captain Virat Kohli, Kuldeep Yadav etc. Kuldeep Yadav too feels the existing format should be there in the longer format of the game.
“To be very honest, I would prefer five-day Test cricket. Test cricket is made for five days and I would not like to see any change in it. Something which is classic should be kept as it is,” he shared.
Sri Lanka coach Mickey Arthur supported Test matches a five-day game.
“Look, five-day Test cricket is the way to go (forward). Test cricket challenges you mentally, physically and technically and a lot of a time on the fifth day (a result comes). We just witnessed a very good Test match (England versus South Africa) that finished on day five,” Arthur said before the third T20I in Pune on Friday.
“I know, we can talk about financial pressures and that type of stuff. I think the fabric of Test cricket should not be messed (up) with. You want wickets deteriorating on day five, you want (situations) where there is lot of really good exciting draws,” Arthur further added.
