An acid test for vintage cricket

A sight you will never see in T-20 cricket. (File grab)

Raju Korti
Having grown up with the finesse of watching Test cricket and its steady decline, I am waiting for that mortifying day when I will soon have to write its epitaph. Call me old fashioned or stuck in the past. My unequivocal verdict is the shorter versions have killed the ingenuity and astuteness of the game. When power and money take over, subtlety and elegance take a backseat.
The most saddening part about the death knell of what once was dubbed as "gentleman's game", is players themselves pitching in to advocate the end of the longer format. The latest to join this bandwagon is former Australian skipper Mark Taylor. Taylor wants the five-day version to be abridged to four days so that spectator interest is sustained on better "attacking intent". For someone who has reaped a 7500-plus run harvest in 100-plus Test matches with 20 centuries, this is decomposed thinking. If "attacking intent" is the only criterion, what is wrong with T-20 which has already made the 50-over format almost redundant? Better still, they can introduce a five-overs-a-side match with only the rival team bowler on the ground. That will ensure the entire World Cup is wound up in a day and the money-swollen cricketing boards can laugh their way to the banks without taxing their infrastructure. Ditto for the players. If a player gets a lakh of rupees for every six and a catch taken, who the hell wants to sweat the whole day for a pittance? Right! No one wants to shell out money to watch a classic defence play. So slam, wham, bang and get out.
The shorter version is like a viral fever gone from international cricket to domestic level now and below that with youngsters trying to play the shots they see animatedly on television rather than learning from the copybook. My fear is not about Test cricket dying. It is that it is being allowed to die. If you are a Brendon McCullum or AB de Villiers, there is always going to be a lucrative T-20 deal. The game's best talents are going to disappear off into an IPL sunset two or three years before they actually have to go. The switch-over from the red ball to the white ball is also symbolic of how the game is being bled white even as its red corpuscles rapidly decrease.
Actually, it is not T-20 that I worry about. We have too much of cricket now. So much that even die-hard fans don't know which country is hosting which, when, where and what version. Problem of plenty. Players have short careers and want to rake in the moolah as much as they can. Let's take the case of de Villiers to explain why Test cricket is on death bed. He is paid about Pounds 170,000 a year by South Africa for international cricket but earns about Pounds 700,000 for six weeks at the IPL. And there are de Villiers in every cricketing country.
Sample this. Way back in 1982, I recall the last wicket partnership between Jeff Thomson and Allan Border in the Boxing Day Test at MCG when the unlikely pair almost snatched an incredible victory. Regardless of its increasing popularity, the white-washed, counterfeit three-hour game can never produce such gripping moments. Lose a match today? Never mind, there will be another one tomorrow, the day after that and again the next day. The force-feeding is endless.
The idea of cricketing values can be poked fun at as a relic of the snobbish British Raj but the modern version of the game has been stripped of the virtues that made it great: Intelligence, patience, Determination and Perseverance.T-20 with its crass money-making underpinning, is a game that suits our times. It appeals to a population without patience, an audience constantly distracted by flashing lights, loud music and extravagant personalities. We are a generation that panics at the idea of quiet. A baseball-like aerial slog appeals to our senses more than a copybook stroke where the ball is caressed to the fence.  
It is not as if there are no ways to turn this around. Pitches are vital. If they are flat and have nothing for the bowlers, the excitement in the game becomes lop-sided. Ticket prices too. One cannot believe that the Mr Moneybags boards who have the money to pay outrageous sums to the players cannot make them cost-effective. Day-night Tests, pink ball, better remuneration are some other options. Most important, the players need to change their temperament and outlook. The pride to play for their country should be paramount but if they are getting paid higher for a shorter version, they prefer the easier option. Boards also need to think in terms of making Test career more financially viable. Look at the West Indies. All their cricketers chase the T-20 buck. Test matches need proper marketing, not just lip service. Why do administrators not understand the concept of less is more? Make Test cricket special again. Have a proper context to a series and bring in the World Test championship that was strangled at birth. And to keep spectators out of the loop would be be wrong. I dread to think that we may have virtually no Test cricket unless the people running the game start eschewing short-termism and begin to act as true guardians of the game. After all, it takes two to tango.

While I feverishly hope I am not flogging an about-to-die horse, my friend N S Krishnan nails it with something that inspires optimism: "Have hope friend. The classic never goes out of fashion."