Wrong to say Test cricket is dying: Richardson

DUBAI: International Cricket Council (ICC) chairman Shashank Manohar might feel Test cricket is dying, but David Richardson, the global cricket body’s chief executive, says he has numbers to show that view is incorrect.

According to Richardson, based on a survey the ICC carried out last year, Test cricket has a strong and committed fan base of about 700 million, which is close to 68% of the global fan pool of over a billion.

Without countering his boss, Richardson said Manohar was only suggesting that Test cricket, with the exponential growth of T20, was dying for a context, and the forthcoming World Test Championship would provide that context.

“We are trying to see whether Test championship can generate interest,” Manohar had said during his visit to Bangaladesh earlier this month. “Because Test cricket is actually dying to be honest.”

Manohar also said fans were finding it difficult to find “five days” to go and watch Test cricket at a venue; instead they preferred three-and-a-half-hours of T20 cricket, a format that has also generated a strong interest from the broadcasters based on the peaking television rating points (TRP).

Manohar’s comments seemed a bit misplaced considering Test cricket was in the middle of a period full of thrilling contests. First there was West Indies’ shock 2-1 win at home against a fancied England side, and most recently Sri Lanka’s Test series win in South Africa.

To understand the pulse of the global cricket fan the ICC conducted a market-research survey last year. The survey revealed that cricket enjoys a fanbase of over a billon globally across all three formats.

“In many countries Test cricket is still very closely followed,” he said. “We have got more than a billion fans that follow cricket - 68% of them are fans of all three formats of the game, which means that close to 700 million people are fans of Test cricket. So it is wrong to say that Test cricket is dying. It is harder for people to go to five days of a Test match.”

“Maybe the way that people are following Test cricket is different to what it was say 10, 20 years ago. But I don’t think it is dying.”