Is it Test Cricket's roots that are withering?

First-Class game harder to sustain than the real thing.

    Two pulsating and compelling Test matches are underway at the moment, India fighting back against a buoyant Bangladesh in Chennai and New Zealand going toe-to-toe with Sri Lanka in Galle.

    It’s the best format of the game, one of the best formats of any game. So why is it struggling to survive so desperately outside of the ‘big three’? The popular perception is that five-day cricket is under pressure because of the costs to stage it, but there’s more to it than that. It starts lower down.

    First-class cricket breeds Test cricketers and there is less of that being played around the world than ever before. South African coaches and senior players are outraged that there will be just a single round of matches played in Division One this summer but the harsh truth is they are merely falling in line with the rest of the Test playing nations.

    Gauteng Lions and former Proteas coach, Russell Domingo, described the situation as ‘bullshit’ and said – correctly – “…you don’t get better at anything by doing less of it.” But, in recent years, first-class has diminished everywhere except in Australia and India.

    Domestic first-class cricket in South Africa may be vital to producing a competitive Proteas Test team but it is also responsible for one of the largest expense items on CSA annual balance sheet, as it is everywhere – even in Australia and India. But they can afford it.

    In an ideal, cricket purist’s world, the eight teams in Division One would play each other home and away each season in a total of 14 games, but there is neither the money nor the time to do that. Ten games would be a good number with the three ‘extra’ matches being derbies to save money and give more people the chance to attend.

    Australia’s Sheffield is contested by the six State teams on a home and away basis playing 10 matches each before the final between the top two. In New Zealand the same format was cut by two matches six years ago leaving the six teams playing eight league matches without a final.

    The Quaid-e-Azam Trophy in Pakistan is contested by eight teams playing a single round of matches and alternating the ‘home’ and ‘away’ venues each year, exactly as South Africa will now do. In the West Indies, where first-class cricket is more expensive and logistically challenging than anywhere else, the format has changed often to save on costs. Currently, the six teams play a single round of matches without a final.

    Sri Lanka is slightly different to the other Test playing nations because club cricket, strongly affiliated to traditional ‘feeder’ schools, remains strong and just as likely to produce national cricketers as the five formal first-class teams which currently play eight matches.  

    Even in England, with eighteen first-class counties, the ten division one teams play 14 matches, fewer than ever before, and there is still talk about reducing that number further now that the entire month of August has been reserved for The Hundred competition and there remains a full, exhausting Vitality Blast T20 schedule as well as the 50-over competition.

    Every country in the world has faced the ‘cost vs reward’ conundrum and it has become ever more squeezed since one-day and then T20 cricket became formats in which costs were lower and income greater than in the first-class game. But without the first-class game there are none of the joys of Test cricket.

    The nirvana for administrations around the world is to make multi-day cricket profitable, or at least self-sustainable. The reality is that spectator numbers are negligible everywhere except England so the alternative is sponsorship, particularly title sponsorship. But that is also on the decrease in most countries and has disappeared altogether from South African cricket except with the Betway SA20.

    So, the compromise has been to cut costs (games) and sharpen the drive towards ‘harder’ matches, to intensify the level of competition, the ‘strength vs strength’ argument. It was the main reason for the formation of the Franchise system in South Africa, but nobody was prepared to cut funding to the loss-making unions so CSA ended up with 21 teams rather than six and lost even more money.

    Now the drive is towards more cricket for the SA ‘A’ team, a higher level of cricket involving the ‘next best’ players with the aim of bridging the gap between provincial cricket and the full international game.

    But one major problem, amongst many, with having a skeletal number of games and alternating home and away venues annually, is identifying the next best. It is entirely possible that rain in Durban one year, an injury in Gqeberha the next and a greentop at Newlands could conspire to prevent a talented batter playing more than a couple of games at coastal venues in his most formative years. He might have a pile of Highveld runs but can he cope at the coast?

India has focussed on ‘big’ domestic matches with high intensity for years. The Ranji Trophy is the premier first-class competition in which the States play seven group matches. But they are followed by quarter-finals, semi-finals and a final, each with increasing prestige. And it gets better.

    The Duleep Trophy is a regional tournament involving four zonal teams, North, South, East and West (although they have become A, B, C and D this year.) If a young player makes the cut there he knows he’s on the radar. And finally, the Irani Trophy is contested between the Ranji Trophy winners and the Rest of India in the most prestigious first-class match of the year. More quality, less quantity. Easier said than done.