BertieWoostersDonsClub wrote:
dons50 wrote:
BertieWoostersDonsClub wrote:
keyser soze wrote:
Not a test but a one day. Lamb & De Freitas vs Australia at the SCG in '87. Lamb hit 18 in the first 5 balls of the last over to win. Lovely.
A bit like Lamb vs Courtney Walsh later that year (or was it a year after?). I thnk Walsh cried. His tears fed me.
I loved it (but) it was the beginning of nations focusing more on one-dayers and less on Test Matches.
I hope that never happens.
A further step in that direction...
Alex Hales and Adil Rashid have announced they are only going to play one day cricket for their counties this year, not 4-day cricket. Jos Buttler and Eoin Morgan haven't announced anything but they've pretty much been doing that for the last few years anyway.
Most of the best West Indies cricketers just play Twenty20 around the world, while other nations Test players are retiring every earlier to have an extended few years playing IPL, etc.
There's only two nations that get a good crowd for Test Matches - England and Australia. While one-day and Twenty20 games are well attended everywhere.
The modern world just doesn't have the concentration span to appreciate how great a 5-day Test match can be.
I'm worried for poor old Test Cricket.
It's becoming an anachronism, clinging on by its fingernails.
On that - and yes I'm quoting my own post, but so what? - We had a relative visit from Canada a few years back and I was watching a Test Match and when I explained to him that it was day three of a five day match he was amazed. When he asked me who was winning and I said 'Its too early to tell' he was even more amazed. He then went to visit other relatives. When I next saw him and the topic of cricket came up, he asked out of politeness if England had won that other game. When I told him it finished a draw he was
more than amazed... Shocked, aghast and flabbergasted. Simply couldn't comprehend a game lasting five days without a winner.
That's what Test Cricket is: something so traditional and yet at the same time something so quirky and unique.
That's what makes it so special.
It
must be preserved.
Agreed. The most exciting part of cricket is when a team is trying to bowl out the opposition in the last innings. To be able to win bowling second without taking ten wickets isn't really a win.