Former Sri Lankan cricketer Tillakaratne Dilshan is not in favour to play day-night Test matches. Former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly, who is set to take up the new role of BCCI president, has a different view as he wants India to play day-night Test matches.
Dilshan, who has played 87 Test matches, opines that the Test matches should not be played in light. He was also not in the favour that cricketers should play with the Jersey No. on the back. In his view, the Test match should be kept simple and played in the traditional way.
“I don’t think you should play Day-Night. Test cricket should be played only in daylight and in full whites, without numbers on the back. That’s a personal view. We should keep it simple. It’s the main format,” Dilshan said on the sidelines of the Road Safety World Series on Thursday.
“I feel Test cricket should be played in the traditional way, just like the gentleman’s game,” Dilshan said.
ICC should push Test cricket more
Test matches are the purest form of the cricket where the real talent of the player is judged. But in recent past, the interest of peoples from the longest format is going down. To bring back the interest the ICC has introduced the World Test Championship. The inaugural edition of WTC started with the Ashes 2019 and the final will be played in 2021. ICC hopes that it will increase the interest in the Test matches.
Dilshan feels that now the teams focus more on limited-overs cricket. He said that when he was playing too, his team used to play more One-day games than Test cricket. The allrounder expressed that ICC should make more efforts to promote Test cricket.
“Early on in my career, we used to play a lot of one-dayers besides Test cricket. Some countries have now reduced the number of Test matches to make way for more T20 and ODIs, so it has affected Tests, but ICC should push Test cricket more,” Dilshan said.
IPL has changed a lot: Dilshan
Nobody wants to invest so much time in watching Test matches because of busy lives. The interest of people have shifted to the shorter formats. Tilakaratne Dilshan said that after the introduction of T20, many things have changed. Indian Premier League (IPL) has also shifted the interest of people from longer formats to shorter formats, he opines.
“If you ask any cricketer – even now – and they will say they love to play Test cricket the most. That’s where the real talent is tested. More spectators are attracted towards T20 and one-days. Around 2005, it was feared people were moving away from cricket grounds, but then the World T20 and the IPL happened and it changed,” Dilshan said.
Tilakaratne Dilshan was asked about Sri Lanka’s performance. The player said that he was impressed by the performance of young players against Pakistan. He believes that Sri Lanka has got some talented players and will improve.
“We have a lot of young talent coming through. In the last series against Pakistan, we played a lot of good cricket. A lot of young guys played really well. Hopefully, we can keep improving until the 2023 World Cup. With the experience of the likes of Lasith and Angelo, a lot of youngsters are coming through and fingers crossed, they can do a better job than what we did in 2011.”