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“I feared (for the future) in the Ashes, actually. The crowds were quite disappointing in general.”
That was Moeen Ali speaking about the second-most attended Ashes series in cricket history. No, really.
Moeen isn’t the first person to publicly voice concerns over the viability of cricket’s longest format – and he certainly won’t be the last – but it would have been nice of him to have some genuine evidence to back up his statement.
Speaking about the future of Test cricket, Moeen had plenty to say about the recently-concluded Ashes series, not much of it positive.
“It’s been a worry for a while but Australia really opened my eyes. I found it disappointing,” he said.
“I feared (for the future) in the Ashes, actually. The crowds were quite disappointing in general.
“There were a couple of days — Boxing Day, the first day of the series — but even when they won the Ashes there weren’t that many people celebrating.
“That’s when I thought, ‘Actually, we’re struggling a bit’. We’re very lucky in England — after being all around the world and seeing the crowds everywhere else, we’ve got the best fans, we’ve got full houses most of the time.
“But I think the Big Bash had bigger crowds than the Ashes. That’s great for T20 but for Test matches it’s a massive worry.”
For the record, just under 200,000 fans attended the day-night Test in Adelaide (the final number was 199,147) and over 250,000 punters packed into the MCG over the course of the Boxing Day Test, despite that fixture being one of the most tedious cricketing spectacles seen in this country in recent times, on account of a lifeless pitch.
The Adelaide figure made the second Ashes Test the most-attended cricket match ever at the Adelaide Oval, while the MCG number was the second-highest in the history of Boxing Day Tests.
Now, it’s probably not too much of a stretch to say English crowds will produce sell-outs more frequently than what we see in Australia. But that can be attributed to the disparity in ground capacity between the two countries.
English venues like The Oval (24,500), Lord’s (30,000) and Old Trafford (26,000) are dwarfed by their Australian equivalents; the MCG holds over 100,000 fans, while the SCG (46,000), Gabba (42,000) and Adelaide Oval (53,500) are all far larger than your average Test cricket venue in the UK.
Does Test cricket have something to worry about? Of course it does.
But ill-informed comments from cricket stars bemoaning its future aren’t going to help.