Four-day Test: The latest experiment with the longest format
Tinkering with nature has already brought out its feared consequences: soaring temperatures, increasing calamities and a misbehaving vegetation. As a result, humans are suffering across the globe to acquaint themselves with the changing patterns of play.
And the story with cricket's purest format – Test matches – is not different: it dragged on for an infinite period once upon a time; overs were then trimmed to six balls from eight; thereafter came six-day Tests which included the concept of a rest day; soon, that extra day was scrapped to reduce it to five and 15 years into the 21st century, there arrived what no one in the world had ever wondered – a day-night Test!
But that was not it. Just two years on, Boxing Day in 2017 will see a Test match conducted over four days, the first such instance since the format was officially accepted as a five-day affair in 1979. There was a solitary match contested over six days – it was hailed as a “Super Test”, played between hosts Australia and a World XI side in 2005 – but aside from that, no other tweaked Test has had the nod of the ICC until Cricket South Africa floated the concept of a four-day Test this year amidst heated debates about Test cricket's survival.
At the time of approval, the ICC found the idea intriguing, its CEO David Richardson sounded optimistic about the experiment. "The real value is [for] teams like Ireland and Afghanistan, even Zimbabwe who have not been at their best. They will be able to explore the opportunity of playing four-day Test matches. Teams visiting, for example, South Africa, might be more likely to play Zimbabwe in a four-day Test than they would in a five-day Test. So, I think it has a number of advantages,” he had reasoned.
That brings out an alleged irony after the governing body had permitted the revised structure purely on a trial basis with the upcoming fixture at Port Elizabeth. In fact, Richardson, a former South Africa wicket-keeper himself, went on to say that the “trial will run up until the Cricket World Cup in 2019”, though not being compulsory.
That, many can claim, could be the ICC not seeing the bigger picture. If a trial drags on for nearly two years with more four-day Tests entering the frame, it will only be a matter of time before the incumbent format runs out of steam. Also, while a shortened Test in the conventional form would have been more useful to judge – South Africa and Zimbabwe will be playing a day-night game at St George's Park – one under lights could probably render the experiment ineffective.
The fact that the pink ball has come into the scene with the day-night Test, it is still an open secret after seven such affairs that it moves much more than its red cousin, especially once the floodlights take over to put daylight into oblivion. Three out of those matches did not enter the fifth day – two of them even concluded on the third day itself – with Steven Smith and Brendon McCullum, captains in the first-ever day-night game, noting that a touch of less grass would have made things better for the batters.
That continues to be the feeling with Tests played under artificial lights, and to conduct a four-day match might lead to disrupting the little knowledge that observers - in particular, the fans - have gained over its short history. A day game over four days would have enabled the administrators to know more about how a truncated Test would function, at the same time not altering with a still-new-born day-night Tests to allow it to function more smoothly.
What the ICC can instead harp upon is how to convince the BCCI in hosting a day-night Test. Despite its numerous occurrences in domestic cricket, the world's richest cricket board has been reluctant to stage an international game, still unsure about the demeanour of the pink ball, much like their hesitance over the DRS before eventually adopting it. And with Australia hosting at least one day-night Test each summer since 2015, it would be a challenge for Cricket Australia to persuade its Indian counterpart to participate in one come the following home season of 2018-19.
In fact, India were Australia's opponents the last time that the Adelaide Oval hosted a Test in natural light in 2014. "I would anticipate there's not going to be too much problem there," James Sutherland, their CEO, had told ABC Radio this month, hoping to lure India into continuing CA's trend of a minimum of a single day-night fixture.
If the inaugural four-day Test is over inside three days under lights, questions might be raised whether it could have been conducted in an orthodox manner to allow it to initiate properly.
Nevertheless, fans of the more classic version of Test match cricket might wonder how long the mess of experiments would continue. Else, just like nature, Test cricket would end up with multiple disturbances because of human activities, leading to calamities of its own.