Leg and off: Should India have only 5 Test centres like Australia, England?
The Kanpur Test between India and Bangladesh is on the verge of being abandoned due to rain. Most of the first three days have already been washed out - the entire Day 2 going waste happened for the first time since 2015 - and the weather forecast isn't great for the fourth day either.
It wasn't just the rain, there were big delays also because the facilities at the Green Park Stadium weren't good enough to drain water quickly enough in the dry spells. News about a stand being unsafe for spectators and Langurs being used to shoo away food-stealing monkeys of Kanpur didn't give the impression of an exactly professional environment for good Test cricket either.
So, the drama brought the old question back, the fire that was fanned by the then-Indian Test captain Virat Kohli in 2019. He was asked whether Test cricket in India should be limited to a few centres and he replied in detail and strong affirmative.
“We’ve been discussing this for a long time now. And in my opinion, we should have five Test centres period. I agree with State Associations, rotations and you know giving games and all that, that is fine for T20 and One-day Cricket, but Test Cricket, teams that are coming in should know, we are going to play at these five centres, these are the pitches we’re going to expect, these are the kind of people that come to watch, crowds you know," Kohli said.
"So that becomes a challenge already, when you're leaving your shores, because we go to any place, we know we're having four Test matches in these venues, this is what the pitch is going to offer, it's going to be a full stadium, the crowd's behind the [home] team, and look, you want to keep Test cricket alive and exciting. I totally agree with the fact that we need five Test centres at the max," he continued.
"It can't be sporadic and spread over so many places where people turn up or they don't, so in my opinion, absolutely. You should have five strong Test centres that teams coming to India know that this is where they're going to play," Kohli added.
That makes so much sense, doesn't it? But it's not as black and white as it seems. In this edition of Leg and Off, we debate why heeding Kohli's advice makes sense even after five years and why it doesn't.
Why Virat Kohli is right
The need for five Test centers makes sense for Indian players more than anyone else. For example, if the venues are limited to Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, and Ahmedabad (only because of the new stadium) the players can expect certain conditions - pitch, outfield, and wind - to be better prepared.
Going to places deep in the North East or West dilutes their home advantage because they don't have much more idea about the venues than the visiting teams. Recently, when the weird stat about Gus Atkinson having more Test centuries than Sachin Tendulkar at Lord's went viral, it was laughed at because obviously, England play at Lord's multiple times every year while different teams visit there once in two or three years.
There is no proof that Mumbai will always attract more people than Guwahati for Test cricket. But from the crowd's perspective, by limiting Tests to five centers, India can build on these cities' historic culture for cricket and make the Tests big spectacles, like the Boxing Day in Melbourne or the Oval Test in England.
It'll bring more attention from spectators on TV too because some would have memories of a famous Mumbai or Kolkata Test and want to relive them, with knowledge about the conditions. Issues with drainage and facilities would also be avoided, which is important because Test cricket can't afford rain-marred days which push new audiences back.
The weather patterns would be easier to predict because the sample size would be five cities and not 20 for good measure. It'll be a huge win for logistics ease, and player ease and bring a system and certainty around the Test season - all helping the hype around it.
Why India can't go the England and Australia way
Now, as mentioned before, it's not a complete green flag step. It's hard to completely refute the views of an Indian Test captain, perhaps the greatest captain too, but we can safely say that Kohli's views might be a bit short-sighted.
To start with, England has mainly six Test centers - Lord's, the Oval, Edgbaston, Old Trafford, Leeds, and Nottingham. So does Australia - Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Sydney, and Hobart. But England is roughly as big as Tamil Nadu and is 33 percent less in population while Australia has almost 1/10th the population of Uttar Pradesh alone.
The fact that India has played Tests in 18 venues (thrice) is not a huge number, but proportionally quite small still. By limiting Tests to just five or six states, India will limit exposure to only around 38% of the population.
England and Australia can afford to have just five or six Test venues because those are accessible to almost their entire populations. For a non-urban Indian cricket fan in Manipur, traveling to Kolkata for only one of two opportunities every year to watch a Test would become impossible, which will never be the case in England or Australia.
The BCCI has a responsibility to serve India and not five state associations, who will then also get a lion's share of the Test revenue. It'll only fuel elitist tendencies, like the ones we saw when Ahmedabad was allotted the World Cup final.
Questioning the board about venue allotment is completely justified, but saying a particular city shouldn't host a bit of cricket match because it doesn't have the right "culture" isn't. Cricket cultures would never develop until these new venues see big wins and limiting venues would further increase the gap.
The point about limiting Tests to five metro cities and using other formats to popularise cricket in smaller centres is also the same as saying Ireland and Afghanistan should stop playing Test cricket. The answer doesn't lie in limiting and restricting, but in enhancing the facilities in smaller venues (resources can never be an issue) and helping the associations build the culture so cricket gets democraticised to more rural areas, and the talent pool is widened.
There are still so many kids in Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Sikkim, and other such states who don't get access to high-quality Test cricket. That can never be good to grow the format, something that Kohli, too, has championed, can it?
Finally, even from the perspective of Indian cricket's success, it's almost better to have more Test venues and an element of unpredictability. That's because limiting the types of pitch conditions to five or six would also make preparation easy for teams that visit India often, like Australia and England.
India knew exactly what to expect in Brisbane and Sydney in the last Border-Gavaskar Trophy and could pick the squad accordingly. Australia and England never get that chance because of the rotation policy of venues in India. Should you fix what's not broken?