Four-day Tests on ECB's mind for the near future

Test cricket is striving to evolve and stay in relevance with the focus shifting majorly towards the shorter formats. Day-Night Test matches were expected to attract back the crowd to the stadiums that have had a deserted look at most venues across the world and this has got the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) thinking.

Though England continues to remain one of the traditional Test centres where the crowds still walk in for the matches in whites, ECB wants to cut down a day off Test matches and make it a 4-day affair. They wish to get this into the scheme of things from the 2020 season, after the conclusion of the Ashes 2019.

To bring it up in the next ICC meeting

Telegraph Sports reported via their ECB source that they will bring about the topic in the next meeting of the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) board scheduled for October in New Zealand. The focus of the meeting will be on the Test championship 2020 and reinventing the game.

ECB chairman, Colin Graves and chief executive, Tom Harrison, have openly spoken backing the idea of four-day Test matches. Talking about it in 2016, Graves was quoted as saying: “Every Test match would start on a Thursday, with Thursday and Friday being corporate days and then Saturday and Sunday the family days.

“From a cost point of view you’d lose that fifth day, which would save a lot of money from the ground’s point of view and the broadcasters… I would look at that,” he added.

CSA’s request

While the matter is being deliberated Cricket South Africa (CSA) has already requested the ICC to approve a four-day Day-Night Test they would like to stage against Zimbabwe as the Boxing Day Test this year. If the ICC does grant it international status will speak on how the governing body looks at the idea of shorter Test matches.