Gillespie - Test cricket is on it's last legs

[Furball]

Anyways i think test cricket during the last fortnight has pretty much stood up and answered all its doubters like Gillespie in style, test cricket rulezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........!!

Yes, Test cricket has had 2 wonderful adverts for it, but the 2nd Test between England and India also served as a timely reminder that Test cricket still has room for improvement.

A result was never likely unless one side played like idiots.

 

[silentstriker]

More people have access to TVs in their own home than two decades ago. That gives them an alternative to sitting in ****ty conditions all day.

I don't blame them. I wouldn't spend my hard earned money so sit in some of those stadiums all day in the burning sun.

An Indian cricket fan's 'passion' has its limits. Particularly when it hits the hip-pocket.

I don't think that excuse works. Why do they still come to day ODIs?

 

[Richard]

Yes, Test cricket has had 2 wonderful adverts for it, but the 2nd Test between England and India also served as a timely reminder that Test cricket still has room for improvement.

It always will. You're never going to get to a time where no Tests are boring. That said, the sooner we get to a situation where it's possible to stop overs from being lost from Tests the better.

 

[Furball]

I don't think that excuse works. Why do they still come to day ODIs?

7 hours of cricket, at the end of which you're guaranteed a result.

IMO, due to the weather and India's insistence on batting on, any spectators today were seriously short-changed.

It wouldn't have happened with an ODI or Twenty20 contest.

 

[silentstriker]

7 hours of cricket, at the end of which you're guaranteed a result.

That's the point though, isn't it? It's not the heat, it's Test cricket itself that's not longer attractive to the public.

And it was attractive before, even though there were a lot more draws before, and India were a lot worse. I remember sellouts and I'm only in my early twenties.

 

[Richard]

I don't think that excuse works. Why do they still come to day ODIs?

The point is more that maximum encouragement is needed to come to a Test; to come to a ODI, many fans are prepared to put-up with unpleasant viewing conditions.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

That's the point though, isn't it? It's not the heat, it's Test cricket itself that's not longer attractive to the public.

And it was attractive before, even though there were a lot more draws before, and India were a lot worse. I remember sellouts and I'm only in my early twenties.

In the 1976/77 series there 90,000 people in attendance for the final day at Calcutta even though England were certain winners with only three wickets left to be taken. In those days the demand was such that they could force people to buy tickets for all five days if they wanted to go on any day. If they tried that marketing method today there'd be no one there on any day.