What an amazing finish in Hobart. Test cricket is alive, not dead. This match had everything _ tension, wickets, runs, excitement, emotion, careers hanging in the balance, a good green pitch.
Keep Test cricket going, I say.
Which brings me to the point about the length of Test series.
Test series have been played over six, five, four, three and two matches, with occasional one-off Tests.
For me, six is generally overkill and would kill tension, although I have no issues with a six-Test Ashes series with matches in every state, or five states and the ACT. Give Canberra or Hobart an Ashes Test? Why not?
A four-Test series can work but to lacks the tension of a five-Test series while dragging on longer than three Tests.
Despite what I previously thought, a two-Test series can create excitement, as we saw in the series against New Zealand. But I don’t think a third Test would have had the same cutting edge as we saw in Hobart.
Would New Zealand have had the class to close Australia out in three Tests? Maybe, maybe not.
This two-Test series has been a success. I prefer three for India and five or six for England, but I have no issue with the two-Test format for teams such as New Zealand, West indies, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
And that is not insulting those teams, it is just what captures the public’s attention best right now.
I also found the recent South Africa-Australia series to be nail-biting stuff. It too was only two Tests, but it had the required energy and tension to hold the interest.
As Twenty20 expands, more two-Test series may be necessary. They might even save Test cricket.
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