Don't make Test cricket a joke

Those who are ardent supporters of Test cricket will give former Pakistan captain Javed Miandad a loud round of applause for standing up to Cricket Australia and telling them that no way will he allow Test Cricket to be played day/night like they do the 50 and Twenty20 over versions of the game.

Pakistan are due to tour Australia in November and Cricket Australia is toying with the idea of playing the Adelaide Test under lights with a 2 O'clock start.

True that Test cricket must be given a kiss of life. Test cricket was slowly going to its demise because the International Cricket Council instead of attempting to make the longer version of the game more attractive to the players, spectators and Cricket Boards, allowed 50 and Twenty20 cricket to rule over Test cricket.

No way

Good that Miandad, now Director of Pakistan Cricket has said that no way will they agree to play a Test match under lights. If this is allowed to happen it will spoil the traditional game and make a joke of it.

The shorter versions of the game are making enough and more money and Cricket Australia must not show its greed for further money, by tinkering with the time honoured and revered game.

Cricket Australia will seek the approval of the International Cricket Council to launch out on this style of game. CA reckons that a day/night Test will bring in the spectators, because they will have time on their hands to watch this style of game.

In spinning this style of game, it will be difficult for the players to adjust to natural and artificial light for five days that a Test match is played.

Miandad has warned other Cricket Boards not to get too greedy and commercialise Test cricket and not spoil the fun and nature that Test cricket brings to the game.

Latest gimmick

One hopes the ICC will not fall for this latest gimmick to ridicule Test cricket.

Test cricket is what the game is all about and it must be revered and kept sacred. To desecrate it must be further from the minds of those who govern and conduct it.

Fifty and Twenty20 cricket has gone to relegate and denigrate the established game, because administrators in introducing these styles of cricket did so primarily because of the big money that these tournaments attracted.

With the longer version of the game tending to be a bore and a big yawn at times, the all important spectators shunned the game and at times Test cricket was played with only a sprinkling of spectators.

In order to attract the big money that the game needs to survive, those administering the game, first came up with the idea of the shorter version of the game which was 50 over cricket.

Spectators kept flocking to these games and the Cricket Boards and the players stood to benefit.

Then came the man who revolutionised this game that business tycoon from Australia Kerry Packer who is famous for his TV channel nine. With Cricket Australia refusing him rights to telecast the game, he lured some of the outstanding personalities who played the game and innovated by starting night cricket.

Cowboy game

That was called the 'cowboy game' because cricketers shed their usual creams and wore pyjamas styled playing gear. Also was introduced the white ball, black sightscreens and many other bizzare gimmicks that soon caught up with the spectators.

With the game beginning in mid afternoon and going on till late in the night, spectators found it convenient to rush to the ground and have a ball themselves.

Night cricket began to bring in the big money and the established game quietly began to slide. Then some smart alec came up with the idea of Twenty20 cricket and today that is the craze with the Indian Premier League and the Indian Cricket League throwing in a lot of money to the player, the Cricket Boards and you name it.

Connossieurs of the game were lamenting the step motherly treatment to Test cricket. Administrators instead of making Test cricket more lively and attractive, lacking in them the know how to do so, fell hook line and sinker for the shorter versions of the game.

Good then that the former captain of Pakistan Javed Miandad had told Cricket Australia to go fly a kite with their intentions of introducing day-night Test cricket when Pakistan tour down under in November.

Test cricket must be kept as Test cricket and no son of a gun should be allowed to false stroke the time honoured game and ridicule it.

There is now a surfeit of the shorter versions of the money spinning game. Let it remain that way.

Aussies get a bashing

The Australia media can be unforgiving to their cricketers, selectors and Cricket Australia when the team fails. Their series loss to South Africa has got the guns out and the firing has commenced.

The Daily Telegraph headlined the debacle: Australian cricket dead and buried. The daily also ran a mock obituary of their cricket which red R.T.P. Australian cricket slaughtered by South Africa December 30 at the MCC. Aided and abetted by Incompetent selectors, Inept, batting, Impotent bowling, Dreadful Catching and Poor Captaincy.

The daily also asks - who on earth selected the selectors? The selectors are - Andrew Hilditch (chairman), Merv Hughes, David Boon and Jimmie Cox.All former Australian cricketers.