Downfall of test cricket and rise of Twenty20 cricket

Cricket fans around the world are thoroughly enjoying the twenty20 world cup at the moment. Even people who are not big cricket fans are watching this tournament with huge interest. We all can enjoy twenty20 cricket no matter how we analyse it. It is the shortness of twenty20 cricket that has attracted people to cricket more than anything else.

A test match being played

As the popularity of twenty20 cricket goes up, some people have found test cricket very boring. Is test cricket actually boring? To be honest, although I have been watching test cricket for a long time, I find it difficult to answer that question straightaway. Unfortunately, test cricket has been struggling to keep up its audience and its popularity is going down day by day. We have to admit that it is the test cricket that shows us the real quality of cricket. But it has been unable to entertain many of the cricket fans around the world due to its longevity. In this modern world, who can watch a game for five days? The answer would be only few.

Sri Lanka vs England T20 match

In order to make test cricket more interesting, cricket authorities are coming up with all sorts of ideas like shortening it to four days and playing matches at night. However, in trying to shorten test cricket, we are again going to make it another limited over format. And also, it is not going to attract more people because it is still a game of four days. If we are to popularize cricket all around the world, cricket should be made worth watching. People are used to watching short and exciting games. People only welcome those kinds of games and test cricket doesn’t fall into that category anyway. Therefore, test cricket cannot be used as a product to promote cricket in countries where cricket is not popular that much at the moment. 

By contrast, twenty20 cricket is becoming popular at a rapid rate. It has even made 50-over cricket look boring despite 50-over cricket being much shorter game than test cricket. So, when we look at the interest of the people, we can certainly see that people would rather watch short and exciting game than watching a game for five days. What twenty20 cricket has done is that it has attracted more people to the game and even non-cricket fans have started to watch cricket. When the development of cricket is considered, attracting people to cricket is a very important thing.

In any sport, audience is a very important factor and cricket is no exception. Money would be invested in cricket, only if there is a big enough market for the people to gain benefits. No TV company want to invest money in something that nobody watches. Therefore, it is important that we choose the right way to move ahead.