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It may feel a little odd to consider such a debate halfway through sold out back-to-back Ashes series, but there is a far larger problem at hand.
The vast majority of Test cricket is not the Ashes, and many fixtures are played out with dwindling interest across the world.
Test cricket suffers on two levels in this modern age of fast food entertainment.
For starters, a sport that can take five days to produce a drawn result – a concept that the vast majority of the world cannot understand – is always going to have reduced appeal given the vast array of instant result options on the average satellite dish.
Secondly, cricket suffers in an even worse way from the same problem as rugby – that it is a closed shop with few established nations.
There are of course, sports such as AFL that thrive because of their uniqueness and singularity. The AFL, however, does not purport itself as a global game.
This is fine as long as the established nations maintain their standards and interest. But as has been obvious with the West Indies, the access to other sports on television and the money involved has had a negative effect and diluted interest.
While I don’t live in Australia, it is interesting from a foreigner’s perspective to see a decline in cricket and union standards at the same time as football has surged in popularity within the country.
I’m an unashamed purist, even a snob, when it comes to Test cricket. I love it above all else and have little time for ODIs, which I find formulaic, dull, predictable and often one-sided.
I do, however, regularly watch T20 for its unabashed fun and freshness. I love both good wine and cold beer in the same way – they’re completely different but hit the same spot for me.
What is clear is that the short formats of the game are funding the long format. While England and Australia can boast regular large Test crowds, no other nation – not even India – can on a regular basis say this for all opposition.
There is clearly a huge appetite for the shorter formats and it would be mad not to embrace them, but much of the blame must reside with the adminstrators of the Test game.
While we all love the Ashes and also look forward to South Africa and India touring, the problem is that the level of interest outside the core nations is waning. So, it seems, is the talent pool.
While T20 has born out of new shots and increased bowling variations and possibly sharpened fielding, for me the general quality of Test match cricket has vastly fallen away at the same time.
In the past few years alone we have lost Gayle, Hayden, Ponting, Langer, Martin, Hussey, Gilchrist, Lee, McGrath, Warne, Gillespie, Dravid, Sehwag, Kumble, Murali, Jayasuriya, Ambrose, Walsh, Lara, Flintoff, Donald, Pollock, Inzamam, Akhtar and Laxman from Test cricket.
Tendulkar and Kallis are soon to follow.
While some fantastic genuine Test players such as Clarke, J Anderson, Amla, G Smith, Kohli, Pietersen, Cook, Sangakkara, Morkel, Zaheer and Steyn have certainly emerged, the skill set required for Test cricket looks to be on the slide.
Only the South African and England attacks right now could argue to have bowlers of any real compare to what was around a few years ago.
Far fewer batsmen appear to have the ability to bat through an entire day despite the attacks being generally weaker and bowling on pitches with often less demons than yesteryear.
Most Test teams appear to be heading the wrong way in both disciplines.
It is hard to imagine more and more batsmen doing what Tendulkar did in quitting limited overs cricket to prolong their Test careers. The pattern will be to follow the Chris Gayle model and become a T20 gun for hire instead.
There are rumours that Kevin Pietersen could do just that after this next Ashes series.
It could of course simply be part of a cycle, but there does appear to be a link between the growth of the short format and the wane of Test quality.
It could also simply be that the numbers of youngsters sticking with cricket is falling. It is far far easier to earn a living at a plethora of other sports than reaching the pinnacle of cricket, which you have to if you want to be well-rewarded financially.
Money talks, as in all walks of life.
Longer term, those implications are a worry for the standard of all forms of cricket. Deficiencies in a player’s game show up far more obviously in Test cricket. T20 has not even been around long enough to be able to remotely compare standards.
Like it or not, much of the power in the game resides with India. They have the biggest TV numbers, the IPL and the biggest say.
One does not get the impression that the BCCI is in any way prioritising Test cricket.They may ask why they should.
If India chooses to move its focus further away from Test cricket then the Ashes could in time be seen by the rest of the world as a quaint little custom between the two protagonists.
Much of the problem with the depth in Test cricket resides with the smaller Test nations. Standards have dropped in New Zealand, Pakistan and Zimbabwe, the latter two as part of bigger social and political problems.
Bangladesh have not been able to move forwards for similar reasons, while Sri Lanka has a huge focus on the shorter formats in which they excel.
But for all the reasoning and rationale, it simply is not cost-effective for these nations to pour money that they don’t have in to Test cricket.
Test cricket could remain as almost a closed shop between SA, Australia, India and England, where the four big nations simply play each other ad nauseum. But anyone who can remember Wasim and Waqar, Ambrose, Walsh and Lara will hark for an era were there was strength in depth around the world.
While the spectre of no Test cricket may seem a far off notion, one really must wonder where it will be in 10 or 20 years’ time.
Some sports do drop away – boxing, for example, has been largely supplanted by MMA.
The heavyweight championship of the world used to be almost the pinnacle of sport. Now, most would struggle to name another heavyweight outside of the Klitschko brothers. It can happen.
For Australia and England, there seems little to worry about right now. Their grounds are regularly full, but if there is little variety and quality of opposition to play against then the interest will surely dwindle. Sports thrive on competition.
What Test cricket can do to help itself is modernise. Another Roarer discussed the prospect of flood lit Tests recently and it is a suggestion with huge merit.
The ending of the the fifth Test at The Oval was a prime example of how out of step Test cricket is with modern times.
Everyone wanted to see the climax of a thrilling end to a game (albeit a dead rubber) only to be thwarted by the umpires taking the players off the field.
It should be added that the umpires were not at fault – it was the antiquated rules that they were obliged to follow.
Playing for a draw among bad light as the fifth day draws to a close is the essence of Test cricket, but the Test arena needs to adapt if it is to survive.
A simple way to generate interest is for more of the sessions to be available to people when they are not at work. Television audiences would also benefit greatly, and that is where the gravy train mainly passes through.
Of the 15 sessions of a Test match, only six are offered during a period that the people in that country are not at work – the weekend – unless there is a public holiday.
How can that compete against finishing work and heading down to the ground, or switching on the TV in the evening for the second innings of an ODI or an entire T20 match?
The simple fact is that purists such as myself are crying out for the restoration of something to its former glory that simply isn’t feasible in this day and age in its current state.
ODIs and T20s are subsidising the vast majority of cricket, so it is not for them to take a lesser role. It is for the associations to find a way to haul Test cricket back up by its bootstraps if they wish to.
I used a comparison to boxing earlier. When the heavyweight division fell away, everyone said it didn’t matter – the middleweight division was strong and there were great welter and lightweights.
Now, once Mayweather and Pacquiao have retired, there doesn’t really look to be anyone left for a wider audience whatsoever.
Using that analogy, should the First Class form of cricket fall by the wayside entirely then the shorter game may well find itself next.
It could be a freight train that proves very hard to stop.
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