The art of playing Test cricket needs to be rediscovered

Test cricket is known to be the most authentic and traditional form of cricket, with a history of over 200 years under its belt. But the growing craze of T20 cricket has made a huge impact, causing the downfall of the longer format.

Due to the introduction of a lot of T20 leagues, players nowadays prefer to play shorter formats rather than five-day long matches. Some experts say T20 is not cricket, but the way it attracts traffic to the stadium is definitely good for business.

Everything has its drawbacks, and so does T20 cricket. Due to the increased emphasis being given to T20 cricket, players from almost every team have forgotten how to play Test matches the way it was played 10 years back.

Nowadays, almost every Test match ends with a definitive result. Some of the matches don't even take 5 days to finish.

A few years back the story was totally different from the present scenario. During the late 90s and early 2000s, we saw great batsmen like Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting, Kumar Sangakara, etc who had the ability to play defensive cricket and outclass any team with their ability of scoring huge amount of runs coupled with their ability to play long marathon innings with utmost patience.

No doubt we have seen some promising performances in Test cricket in recent times too, by Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara, Steven Smith and a few others. But what about the rest?

If we want to see Test cricket live for long, then we have to find some solution which can help us to protect the longer format while letting us enjoy T20s too.

In the last couple of years, the England Cricket Board and its players have been very focused towards playing Test cricket. They try to play with three different teams for three different formats, as they believe there is no point of taking a T20 specialist into the Test squad and see him struggling to score runs or to take wickets.

Test cricket is only played by the players who have the right temperament to understand the opposition’s tactics. They also need to have the ability to score runs by selecting good shots instead of throwing their bats while trying to hit a six or a four.

Preferring domestic cricket over T20 leagues can help the players develop their overall skill to become complete Test cricketers.

The best example of this is Chesteshwar Pujara. Pujara was struggling with his form in early 2018, but then he went to England, and gave preference to county cricket instead of playing IPL. He got a chance to play for Yorkshire, got back his form by performing well, and ultimately got back to the Indian Test side strongly.

Every player must learn from Pujara; that will help them to play and perform better in Test cricket. If all the players shift their focus at least a little towards the longer format, then we will definitely get to see Test cricket played the way it was a few years back.