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Former Indian cricketer and head coach Ravi Shastri believes the number of teams playing Test cricket need to be divided into two groups. Just like it is in other sports like football, Shastri reckons the teams need to be promoted and relegated from their respective groups depending on the results.
Shastri shed light on how quality cricket in the longest format will keep the fans interested and how that changes when two teams that have a huge gulf in quality come up against each other in Tests.
Speaking at the World Cricket Connects event at Lord's held by the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), here's what Ravi Shastri had to say about teams at a similar level competing against each other in the longest format:
"When you don't have quality, that is when the ratings drop, there are fewer people in the crowd, its meaningless cricket, which is the last thing sport wants. You have 12 Test match teams. Bring it down to six or seven and have promotion and relegation system. You can have two tiers but let the top six keep playing to sustain the interest in Test cricket."
With the kind of intrigue that T20 cricket brings, Shastri feels that is a format that could be used to grow the game. The T20 World Cup 2024 achieved considerable success in growing the game in the United States.
Pat Cummins' opinion on saving Test cricket
Australia's Test captain Pat Cummins also put forward his opinion on what could be done to safeguard the longest format of the game. He feels that there need to be dedicated windows for red-ball cricket wherein no lucrative T20 leagues are played so that the best players of the countries are available to compete.
On this, he opined in the same event:
"In Australia you know Test cricket is from November to January and basically no other cricket is going to get in the way of us playing Test cricket then. If we can have specific windows for IPL but then also Test windows, that makes the decision-making for the players a lot easier."
Cummins highlighted how it was natural for players to follow lucrative T20 leagues amidst a Test series if they were paid handsomely.
