The appeal of 4-day test matches

Recently, the ICC set the proverbial cat amongst the pigeons with by saying that it was going to consider the idea of 4-day test matches. If the cricketing world was looking forward to a quiet new year, this certainly yanked people off the usual boilerplate end-of-the-year self-congratulatory tweets. Suddenly, people were divided into two camps—the ones who thought it was a good idea (the likes of Michael Vaughan) and the ones who thought who thought it wasn’t (Sachin Tendulkar and many others). Let us examine what such a possibility may entail.

Cricket is a unique sport among those with a large following that its format has been tinkered with from time to time in order to fit it better with respect to the ongoing temporal demands. While the length of a football match has been 90 minutes (normal time), cricket has changed its spots often. First of all, cricket has three formats at the international level (with some new-fangled ones bound to enter the fray). The overs in an innings of the showpiece that is the ODI World Cup has varied from 50 to 60. Even in the “original format” of test cricket, the duration has varied between 3-day and “timeless” tests; heck, even the balls per over was not six always. Then what is the big fuss?

The argument behind such a move is financial—already very few teams can afford to play test cricket and the uncertainty regarding the fifth day’s expense burns a hole in many a broadcaster’s and home association’s pockets. And, considering the recent trends of an increasing number of tests finishing before the fifth day, this seems like a natural progression. Also, test matches can follow a Thursday to Sunday calendar, which is friendlier to the fans. So far, so good. But are there other reasons?

One of the peculiarities of test cricket is the draw (different from the tie); cricket fans worldwide have probably struggled to explain this concept to befuddled fans who don’t know much about the sport—how one can play a sport for days on end and still end up with no result? Only cricket fans know the value of a hard-fought draw. That idiosyncrasy aside, there is another pattern to be gleaned here—the Draw% indicates of how many matches finished with a result.

Decade	Matches	Draws	Draw%	Balls per test
1870s	3	0	0.00	1586.00
1880s	29	4	13.79	1666.97
1890s	32	6	18.75	1939.13
1900s	41	10	24.39	1803.41
1910s	29	4	13.79	1791.21
1920s	51	16	31.37	2247.33
1930s	89	36	40.45	2127.21
1940s	45	22	48.89	2378.04
1950s	164	51	31.10	2282.72
1960s	186	88	47.31	2409.01
1970s	198	84	42.42	2255.38
1980s	266	122	45.86	1986.76
1990s	347	124	35.73	2017.58
2000s	464	114	24.57	1974.86
2010s	433	84	19.40	1953.18

 

As the above table indicates, the 2010s has been a very productive decade for test cricket, with more than 80% of the matches ending up in a result (100%-draw% practically gives the result% as only 2 tests were tied throughout test cricket). This is a far cry from the days of, say, 1960s to 1980s, when this number was well south of 60%. The balls per test also shows an interesting trend with the draw%–both move in the same direction and seem to be correlated. Reducing the number of days is bound to eat into this high figure and push the percentage of results lower. The ICC plans to counter this by increasing the number of overs bowled in a day to 98, resulting in a “real loss” of 58 overs. Of course, one could also argue that pitches could be prepared accordingly and that the test match might “settle” into a new “rhythm”, but there are other inherent dangers.

One of them is weather related. In the sub-continent, cricket is a winter-time sport (unlike in England, SA, NZ, and Australia, where it is a summer-time sport) and teams routinely struggle to bowl 90 overs in a day, leave alone a greater number. And this problem is exacerbated at higher latitudes (as the duration of daylight reduces as the latitude increases). This was one of the factors why the Ranji Trophy increased the duration of the knockout matches—to increase the chances of an outright result. Additionally, the benevolence of the weather gods would play a bigger part—one washed out day has greater consequences. Both these factors would reduce the number of results.

The other is about the spinners. Though spinners have played important roles in test cricket, from a statistical perspective, they have slightly “inferior” records than fast bowlers (lower percentage of pure batsmen dismissed, lower bowling averages, higher strike rates and so on); this is natural since fast bowlers bowl before them and set the “tone” for the match—just the nature of the game, that is all.  But slice the numbers based on the innings number, you see a different pattern.

Innings	Bowling Average (spinner)	Bowling Average (pacer)
First	40.03	31.68
Second	35.09	31.56
Third	30.76	28.75
Fourth	28.30	27.68

 

As the test match progresses, the spinners show drastic improvement (~30% over the 4 innings), indicating the help they receive from the deterioration of the playing surface. For a fast bowler? Not as much—it does become easier to bowl, but the improvement isn’t as colossal (~13%). Yes, these figures aren’t grouped by Day 1 to 5 (ball-by-ball data wasn’t available until recently), but these trends are too big to ignore by themselves and are indicative of increasing assistance for spinners. Without the aid of an additional day (in which the pitch would be exposed to the elements and deteriorate further), spinners will surely suffer and be relegated to second-class citizens unless turning pitches are made world over.

The workload of the bowlers would increase as well, with each bowler having to bowl more number of overs per day. And, some of the most memorable matches have gone the distance—think Kolkata 2001 or the recent South Africa-England test. Decreasing the duration would only rob fans of some classic finishes.

Hence, the reasons to play test cricket over 4 days are purely financial; according to calculations for this test cycle (2015-2023), reducing the tests by a day would “free up” 335 days, which the boards can use as they please (probably to schedule more T20s to subsidize test cricket). Therefore, at best, the ICC should trial this in the matches involving the newer teams to reduce the costs and not tinker with the 5-day formula for the World Test Championship as it has a lot of balance for all players involved.

 

A league of their own

Spot the difference: The design of the trophy is proof that the cricket tournament draws its inspiration from its footballing namesake. Images sources: 1 and 2.

While a global TV audience awaits the matches of a mouthwatering second round of fixtures following the eye popping results of the first round of the pan- European UEFA champions league football competition, in a place far away, the fate of the similarly named supposed premier T20 tournament lies in balance. It is not hard to see where the cricket tournament draws its inspiration from with its similar name and a trophy which would pass off as a good knock- off at first glance; add to it an incestuous bunch of winners from the big leagues in the recent years, it makes for an interesting comparision. Alas, the similarities end there- for, the former drenched in stardust and fable from inception, the latter only serves as a hastily arranged competition analogous to an answer for a fill in the blank question shoehorned in the board exam question paper template like cricketing calendar. This is not to say that the aforementioned elusive holy grail of football had figured out its present format in the first try- the present jamboree came to be after many iterations in the format (some involving cup winners, league winners and multiple teams from a league). In spite of both the competitions sharing a common premise, the impostor at the door is a pale imitation of the centerpiece of club football. Here’s why:

• Limited playing field: The main stakeholders of the tournament contribute a vast majority of the participants which is not the ideal for the premier franchise T20 competition. More so, with as many as 50% of the IPL teams taking part in the tournament proper, it makes a mockery of being a multi-national tournament (contrast this with the 16 national representatives that took part in the inaugural 1955-56 European cup). Additionally, too few teams get to play the actual tournament, robbing it of its melting pot. Also, the musical chairs like choice of host countries leaves little to the imagination- the aura of the football tournament is built on the backdrop of magical nights in mythical stadium atmospheres.

Leading light: Alfredo Di Stefano’s exploits in the UEFA Champions league made him the world’s first football superstar. He played a key role in establishing the primacy of the tournament. Image source: 3

• Lack of cutting edge: In the last decade, the UEFA Champions League is opined to be the place where the evolution of the game is witnessed, taking over the mantle from the world cup. With very few changes in playing conditions and tactics, the CLT20 tournament does not rouse curiosity except for a few talent scouts taking notes of their next auction purchase. In fact, a good show in this tournament is seen as a ticket to a high paying IPL contract, which is the biggest prize in T20 cricket today- when it should be the other way around. Here, teams would be well served if they mirror the home grown player rules and the no foreign player restrictions in the 11 rule of the footballing counterpart in order to cater to the participation needs of the local and the best players.

Key question for the CLT20: Would an IPL superstar ask for a transfer to another team for a chance to win the trophy? It is unlikely that a player would show the reverence accorded to the IPL. Image source: 4

• Misplaced priorities: The chance to play CLT20 does not figure highly in the to-do lists of top players around the world. In comparision, the footballing teams see a shakeup with the top players being extremely motivated to showcase their wares in the elite tournament. This leads to much heartburn for supporters of clubs which fail to qualify for the tournament and the players jump ship to qualified teams the coming season. An additional cause of confusion is the lack of one player- one team concept due to the nature of franchise T20 cricket being a travelling circus.

• Format worries: What adds to the spectacle of the footballing equivalent is the sense of a finale at the end of the European season followed by the end of season break. The CLT20 tournament itself is too short and does not stay in public memory. A three week tournament with one off qualifiers, group phase and knockout between non- local teams lacks the appeal of home- away matches throughout the season. The home- away format is crucial to drum up local support in the stadiums and this necessitates the tournament to be played in a spread out manner. Since the tournament is young (UCL started at least 25 years after a majority of the first set of teams started playing club football) and the fans are yet to develop a sense of loyalty to the equally young franchises, rivalries are yet to be forged into the rich tapestry of sub plots & narratives of the competition.

• Anthem: Enough said.

What should be the way forward for a tournament presently bookended by cricketing seasons? One way to approach this is to create a common domestic calendar for the subcontinental and southern hemisphere nations since they have overlapping cricketing seasons (similar to UEFA). A downside to this would be that the IPL, due to its financial muscle, would grab all the “big” stars leaving the rest of the world to fight for crumbs. But if the need for playing time for an individual player has a say here, an equilibrium would lead to many players opting to play for their domestic teams, thus helping the development of the sport locally. Of course, this would eat into the international calendar as well but a culling of unnecessary bilateral ODI games would help the cause. Imagine if 2 months of the 6 month cricket season are reserved for domestic as well as international T20 league competition with a home and away format, the spotlight, build-up and interest would build to a crescendo culminating in an end of season finale in one of the iconic stadiums in late March. What would also make a great story is to increase the intake to 16 teams (could be expanded to 32 in the future) for the tournament group phase- Hasan Cheema makes several suggestions on including associate national teams strengthened by a smattering of foreign players – and this would certainly add to the intrigue and diversity. If cricket needs to get a move on from its present status of being a sport with a large fan following from a cozy club to newer destinations and audiences, it has to embrace a franchise based T20 as a vehicle to promote the game as the traditional vehicles of international tournaments and bilateral tours only hinder inclusivity. This is necessary, but not sufficient though; a true cricketing calendar should only use this as a launching pad and create an aspirational value and space for test cricket, which is the only format where the bowlers are more important than the batsmen.

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