It’s official. Ladies, gentleman, boys and girls, Pakistan are now the no.1-ranked Test team in the world.
For the first time in the embattled nation’s history they are the best in the world and I couldn’t be happier.
India is at No.2 and the Sri Lankans are buoyed by their unbelievable white-wash of Australia – the first time in their history.
Make no mistake we are seeing a new wave of subcontinental supremacy. Note this is coming from an England fan, but more importantly a Test cricket fan.
The reality is Test cricket has to fight to stay relevant in a highly-competitive internal and external sporting market. It has to compete not only with other sporting codes, but also its shorter form T20 cricket.
The long form has endured some of its biggest setbacks in the last five years as T20 cricket becomes more and more popular. Empty stadiums are the new normal in South Africa as well as the West Indies.
Add to that the constant criticism that the long-form has lost its edge with pitches pandering to batsman and some nations taking the traditional form less than seriously, to put it kindly.
The subcontinent could well be the solution to many of Test cricket’s problems.
Why?
Start with the fact the combined population of these three countries alone is just shy of 1.5 billion. No doubt cricket’s commercial metrics benefit when the large bloc of supporters has a team worth watching.
These three countries rank cricket as their most popular sport something that could not be said of England, Australia, New Zealand or South Africa. Ask anybody in cricket, there is no country that values its cricketers more than India.
Indeed if Sachin Tendaulkar and the game of cricket were popular 2000 years ago we’d probably have a monotheistic religion dedicated to the ‘little master’.
The importance of Test cricket shouldn’t be understated either, the competition and rivalry in Test cricket is unparalleled.
The draw for the shorter forms, especially T20 cricket is to see boundaries and the most exciting moments of cricket packed into three hours of entertainment with some fireworks and cheerleaders on the side.
The trade-off is less in-depth tactical battles, as well as the reduced value of winning.
Greg Alexander said last week on the Back Page what we all think. The ODIs and T20s are exciting to watch and undoubtedly enjoyable, but we don’t care nearly as much if we lose them.
Let’s also look at how hosting Pakistan, India or Sri Lanka is made better when they’re playing good cricket could improve the state of Test cricket.
The large diaspora of migrants from all of those nations in England and Australia especially means we get some enthralling cricket where the crowds have a large away team support.
The subcontinent has delivered some great matches on Australian soil too. For example the Sydney Test in 2008 against India or in 2010 against Pakistan, still two of the best Test matches in the last decade played in Australia.
In an ideal world Tests, ODIs and T20 cricket could all be held up in equal stead and there wouldn’t be a growing divide between the three formats, but there is.
It is still possible to have each format given equal value, but the current state of play where T20s are played in the height of the summer without fail and the Test season starting earlier and earlier shows how that is clearly not the case.
Test cricket needs some heat and flair injected in it for our upcoming summer with Pakistan touring Australia, the sweltering subcontinent might just be the source!
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