Reducing the Test cricket to four days has long been a debate in the cricket community now. With the teams not looking to play for a draw due to the World Test Championship points, the five-day duration of the Test matches has come under question yet again.
Test cricket and ODI cricket were already under threat from the growing T20 games and leagues around the world but the WTC scenarios have now made the teams more result-oriented than ever. Former India captain Dilip Vengsarkar has advocated for trimming the duration of the Test matches to four days.
"Tests should be reduced to four-day games because most of the matches are getting over in under four days. Also, most of the affiliated boards of the International Cricket Council (ICC), apart from India, Australia, and England, are not in good financial condition, so four-day Tests could save them some expenses.
"It is financially draining and too expensive for a team like West Indies to travel for Test matches to the rest of the world. Besides, it's unfair to sell tickets for five days when the matches are getting over in three days," Vengsarkar told TOI.
The Test matches often get finished in three to four days and more so in India. Out of the 25 Tests played in India in the last five years, only five have gone on for five days with as many as 13 finishing inside three days.
Vengsarkar was also of the opinion that Test matches should be given to Test centres while the white-ball games could be taken elsewhere. "The support the Mumbaikars provided to Test cricket was overwhelming. As compared to the other venues during this series, they turned up in huge numbers even for a dead rubber. I guess the time has come to stage cricket only at Test centres like New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, and Chennai. The One-Dayers and T20Is can be staged at the rest of the centres," the former Indian skipper said.
