Editorial: Calls for four-day tests as fast cricket changes the game

Brendon McCullum's influence is reshaping test cricket. McCullum is pictured celebrating bringing up a triple century against India at the Basin Reserve in 2014. Photo / NZME

Editorial

Boxing Day for many means bargain shopping, a surprising impulse after just one day’s respite from Christmas shopping. For others it means locking up the house and getting away to a beach for much-needed break. And for some it means cricket.

It’s the perfect day, with a week or two of leisure ahead, to put aside the important cares of life and give the mind to the peculiar, absorbing, leisurely form of cricket that can last five days.

In Australia the “Boxing Day Test” has become an institution. Melbourne’s big “G” will probably be filled today for the beginning of a test against India. Sadly, New Zealand’s threadbare test schedule does not offer something similar here but it’s a good day to contemplate cricket nevertheless.

Last week the Black Caps finished their only test series at home this summer, losing to an English team led by New Zealand-born Ben Stokes and coached by New Zealand’s Brendon McCullum. They gave us a stunning exhibition of the relentlessly — some would say recklessly — positive batting McCullum exemplified when he captained the Black Caps.

Now, in league with the similarly minded Stokes, McCullum’s approach has transformed the way England plays. Their batters scored so fast that none of the three tests went to a fifth day.

England had the first test at Christchurch virtually won by the end of the third day, the Black Caps having lost six wickets overhauling a hefty first-innings deficit. England had command of the second test at Wellington within two days and wrapped it up in three.

That result prompted a former English international, Michael Vaughan, writing for the Daily Telegraph, to suggest tests should be reduced from a maximum of five days to four. He pointed out England are not alone in playing fast these days. In the current Australia-India series, India won the first test in four days and Australia the second in three days.

The appeal of cricket in its traditional form depends in part on time pressure. Even with a time span as long as five days, it has been difficult to complete two innings and drawn tests were common. Not so now.

In New Zealand’s second and third tests against England, the dominating side (New Zealand at Hamilton) was able to set the other team such a massive target with two full days remaining that the result of the matches became inevitable too soon.

Had they been four-day games, the leading team would have had to set the other a more competitive target if it wanted to give itself a chance to win in the time remaining.

Four-day tests would be a sensible response to the influence of limited-over cricket on the way tests are being played now.

Limited-over cricket takes time considerations out of the game. Teams simply have 50 or 20 overs to score as many runs as they can. To that end, players have improvised and developed strokes that previous exponents of the art never imagined.

Now they are bringing those strokes to test cricket and it is much better for it.

But don’t buy a five-day ticket.