The next step to securing Test cricket's relevance

Great read Alec. I will state up front that I am a purist. Test cricket is the pinnacle and outside of the ODI world cup every 4 years, neither ODI nor (international) T20 carry any relevance for me. As sad as it is, to keep test cricket viable day-night test cricket will be the way forward. The simple thing is, thousands cannot attend or watch test cricket on a working day - that is at least 60% of a test match (give or take dependong on length of test and scheduling). Day night tests provide a solution to this. It will hugely help the non-marque series. It is not the Ashes, Endland v India/Pak/SA, Australia vs india series that need a filip. There are of course other considerations which are alluded to above - they have to speed up the overrate, It is too slow, ticket costs. In some places- test cricket isnt well attended - SL, INdia are examples where ODI/T20 is king but create a D/N test market and perhaps it creates another avenue and excitement for patrons to attend.

Any further restrictions to bowlers in test matches will see me out of here.

Definitely agree - especially with the +30 minute allowances we now have. Why they can't fine or knock runs off for slow over rate baffles me. But at the same time, the batsmen do exactly the same thing. Fiddling with pads, stopping the bowler, calling for a drink/new gloves. Umpire has to really step up and take control of the match.

I've often heard some weird things about the cost of going to games on the sub-continent or the "packages" re tickets. I've often heard bizarre things like you have to buy multiday passes etc. If the fans don't have enough money, throw the gates open. Full grounds improve the spectacle, which improves tv ratings and sponsorship anyway.

No to four (4) day tests matches or limiting bowling run ups (it's easy enough for batters as it is). But I do agree with things like reducing the time between overs with the captain chats and also reducing the time between balls by making the batsmen have to face up quicker and removing how long it takes to get the ball back to the bowler. To not bowl 90 overs in a day is a disgrace. Always.

That's why I feel D/N isn't going to bring crowds in certain countries. They just don't watch test cricket. It makes sense in Australia and England and to an extent SA as people come in numbers to watch test cricket. Like you said even two tier system would not yield much success as only the top tier will enjoy good attendance. But probably having tests in Ireland could bring in lots of crowd? It is a tricky situation as ODI's before and now T20's have taken fans away from tests. Good that Australia/England and SA have still kept the interest alive. Now with India playing lots of tests, the interest in India has increased as well and also India being one of the top test nation helps. Pakistan unfortunately do not get crowds because of not playing at home. West Indies fans have lost interest which is probably more due to their teams poor results. I remember India playing in 1997 and 2002 in WI in front of packed stadiums. Those days are long gone. New Zealand still has decent crowds.

Giri, whilst the SL performance in the recent series was abject it isn't the reason for poor crowds - people have never watched tests in SL in numbers. I was in Colombo on business in 2004 and went to Kandy to watch what turned out to be an epic test match. Gilly took over the captaincy when Punter did his back, promoted himself to 3 and made a run a ball ton that must have been amongst his best. Marto made a big hundred too and Warne got ten-for to win it. Their team had Murali (who got 9), Atapattu, Jaysuriya, Kumar, Jayawardene, Dilshan, Vaas - the SL all stars. We had Hayden, Langer, Ponting, McGrath, Gillespie etc. Classic battle in a beautiful location and played out in front of a crowd of less than 1000. My impression was that the crowd doubled in size when school finished and kids were allowed to watch a test match on their school Oval. I gather the problem was lot to do with the cost of tickets. I gave a cricket nut who I had shared the train trip from Colombo to Kandy with about $5 to buy a ticket. His plan was to watch from outside the fence as he couldn't afford the cost.

I like the idea of day/night Test cricket but I don't really see how it works in England. Most Roar readers have probably been lucky enough to never have experienced a day/night ODI over here, where it can often turn uncomfortably nippy as the game is drawing to a close, even at the height of summer - sitting there freezing your backside off is hardly the way to go about getting the crowds hooked on cricket. Also, the whole point of day/night cricket is to play some of the game at night I presume, but given that the sun doesn't go down until late during the summer and the light stays good for a while even after it has means that the amount of play the floodlights will take over for is pretty minimal in the context of a five day game. It's not like Australia, the UAE or the Caribbean, where the sun goes down like a shot and darkness falls quickly - you could conceivably play without floodlights on a decent day until around half 8 anyway, and at the height of June and July the light clings on, albeit faintly, even at around 10pm. I think it's a worthwhile experiment over here - personally can't wait to see what Edgbaston looks like with the pink ball under lights and ticket sales are incredibly strong, with the first three days selling out and apparently a good proportion of them from people who've never been to a game before, something massively unlikely to have happened if there wasn't some sort of novelty factor to the game - but I can't see it becoming a regular fixture of the English home season. Where it needs to take off are in countries that struggle to pull in crowds for Test cricket - a day/night Test in Jamaica or Barbados would be a mighty fine thing indeed, for example.

D/N cricket is not going to revive test cricket in countries where it is already dying. More competitive test matches would. The recent series between India and Sri lanka played out to almost empty grounds which was a sad reflection of the home sides woes. Crowds in India for tests have shown marked improvement after BCCI started concentrating on tests and also because of conducting games in the non - traditional venues. Australia and England have always have good crowds for test cricket and the D/N games just add to the spectacle and possibly will bring in more people to the stadium. The problem will be in countries like West Indies, Sri Lanka, UAE. Probably a 2 tier system will help? A system where teams are more competitive?

Test cricket has shown remarkable resilience to have survived for 140 years.It most certainly has a future, but it requires players and administrators to be on the same page. No conflict in scheduling. Pay test players what they're worth. The game cannot afford to cannibalise itself. The players in particular must do more to promote and preserve the sanctity of the from they claim they hold so dear.

I think there are Tests between certain sides that need "saving" and England v the Windies is sadly one of them. This obviously would not have been the case 25 years ago, but times change. The two Tests in Australia were a success in the first instance for the novelty of going to a day/night Test, but more because the sides playing were about equal and were having a red hot go. Test cricket needs "saving" because there are only 3 or 4 Test teams that are competitive against each other. If cricket administrators across the world were fair dinkum, they'd be trying their best to resurrect the West Indies, for example. Cricket these days is run by the almighty dollar and the blokes in charge care about little else. I seem to recall a recent cricket strike that highlights this very point.

I think other means should have been explored for test match cricket without resorting to "radical surgery" first off. The problem for younger audiences I think is the "slowness" of the game, and it frustrates me also. The administrators need to make changes to speed up the pace of the game, more overs per day, four day tests, limits on run up lengths, cut out the endless recirculating of the ball back through the wicket keeper and ball polishers back to the bowler, limit the amount of time taken up by "on field conferences" all of which are intended by the captains to limit the amount of play there is in a day. There is no reason why there cannot be 120 overs bowled per day if the batsmen are forced to be ready to face once the bowler is at his bowling mark. There is so much time wasted in EVERY day of every test match, cut that out and penalise time wasting and we will have more exciting test matches and more results/ less draws. I have attended both Adelaide D/N tests and the Brisbane D/N test and enjoyed them as something different The pink ball for me is hard to see with the naked eye,. on TV or through binoculars was okay. However I much prefer a "traditional" day time test and will not be going to the Adelaide test this year.

Having been to the D/N Adelaide Tests, I have to say the cricket and the atmosphere was impressive. The obvious challenge to batting at dusk certainly added to the game. Whilst I would rather it stayed the same as it always was, I accept that everyone doesn't think this way. If this is the way forward to preserve the five day game, so be it.

It's a shame that we have reached the point where test cricket needs "saving" per se. But that being the case, D/N tests seem a good way to do so.