In the years to come, MS Dhoni may be regarded the greatest Indian captain ever. People would associate him with that because of the triumphs in T20 world cup in 2007, ODI World cup in 2011 and Champions trophy in 2013. But the legacy of a true captain would be the number of victories in the age old TEST format of the game. The format is called as test, because it severely tests players’ skill sets. Players are expected to showcase their prowess over a extended duration of 5 days. The so called bits and pieces cricketers whom we are used to see in limited over formats have no place in Test cricket.
What makes Test cricket so attractive in the first place? My answer would be cricket’s history is associated with Test cricket. If cricket started to be played at a professional level in the early 1900’s, limited overs cricket appeared on the scene much later in the 1970’s. So for around 70 years cricket has been defined with Test cricket only. Even though I am not strong advocate of comparing players across eras, the current set of players can definitely look above their shoulders to all those legends. The magical number of cricket 99.94 has been associated with Test cricket. For any modern day player touching even a fair bit of this distance would be a remarkable achievement. Ideally speaking Don Bradman scored around 100 runs in every test he played. PHEW! Watta player. People can compare a Sachin Tendulkar with a Sir Vivian Richards based on this average. For guys like Virat Kohli who seemed to have mastered the ODI format with around 18 hundreds before his 25th birthday, he has to travel a long way in test match cricket. The names mentioned above can be a huge motivation factor for this generation’s talented youngsters like Virat.
Since the matches are played over a period of 5 days, spanning many sessions, only teams who win majority of the sessions and that too crucial ones come on top. When there was a talk after the success of Indian Premier League, that many players came out and feared the longevity of Test cricket. Hitters like Chris Gayle made known their preference in public. Just when everybody thought this great format is going to lose it sheen, we have seen some great test matches being played over a few years. That brought Test cricket back to focus. A glorious example would be Faf du Plessis and AB de Villiers’s marathon batting performance in Adelaide against a rejuvenated Aussie attack. The India South Africa test match at Johannesburg where the above mentioned duo staged another escape act was also a classic. When the past two ashes series were literally one sided affairs, the current one brought an end to one of the finest cricketing teams assembled. The bowling of Mitch also brought back memories of intimidating fast bowlers of 80’s WI Bowlers. When the prospect of facing one bowler was too hot for a classy England 11, I seriously sympathise the condition of the teams in the 80’s when they had to face Holding, Marshall, Roberts, Garner, and Ambrose. There would be no respite as they would keep coming at you. The Champion Sunny Gavaskar is still regarded highly because of his stats against the mighty West Indians. Teams should have batsmen who can play across sessions and bowlers who can bowl extended spells. A Chateswar Pujara and a Peter Siddle would be two current role models. There have been many matches where teams would have dominated 4 out of 5 days only to lose focus on the final three sessions. The rear guard efforts of Laxman and Dravid at Eden and aggressive batting of Botham and spell bounding bowling from Willis at 81 Ashes are cases where teams have seized test matches from cusp of defeats. This is what makes test matches interesting. UNPREDICTABILITY!
Even though test matches may not witness the huge crowds of 80’s and 90’s, they are still exciting for any passionate cricket lover. The performances of the current set of teams are also a huge factor. In every era there used to be dominant team Australia in 50’s, West Indies in 80’s, Australia again in the 90’s and 2000’s. But now no team is that invincible. Only South Africa can press their claim against this statement. Every team is unbeatable at home and mediocre away. So a perfect team would be one which would survive all conditions. But it is hard to find one. That makes Test cricket nowadays even interesting. As Charles Darwin said about survival of the fittest, the argument about the fittest format of cricket is one sided.
