Add Category
There are questions that seem to pop up annually when Test cricket fills our screens, airwaves and national consciousness.
Why can't modern players bowl 90 overs in a day?
How big does the sightscreen need to be for Steve Smith to not be distracted?
What is Marnus Labuschagne going on about under the helmet at bat pad?
But one of the most crucial, existential ones is this: Is the end in sight for Test cricket and, if it's not, what can be done to arrest its slide to irrelevance?
Despite a tense and thrilling series against an underrated Pakistan side, the issue came to a head again when the make-up of the South African and West Indian teams for their January tours was revealed.
The 15-man West Indies squad includes seven uncapped players for the two-Test tour of Australia.
The Proteas, meanwhile, have named a threadbare squad, featuring seven uncapped players of their own for their tour of New Zealand, which again is only two Tests long and will be captained by a 27-year-old debutant, Neil Brand.
The relative lack of strength of the two sides is painfully obvious when you look at the experience each has under their belts.
The 15 tourists from the Caribbean have played a combined 235 Test matches — just a handful more than the 230 Tests that Steve Smith and Nathan Lyon have managed.
The 14 South Africans? Their experience amounts to just 51 Tests — which is just shy of the 52 Tests that New Zealand quick Tim Southee has played on home soil on his own.
Just two of the touring party have played Test cricket in the past year — although as we'll see, that's not a surprise given the paltry number of Tests the Proteas have lined up in.
By contrast, Australia's 13-man squad for the last two Pakistan Tests had a total of 811 caps.
Home T20 World Cup distracts the Windies
The reasons for the absence of some big names is, sadly, very obvious. T20 cricket and its proliferation across the world.
"The squad has been affected by the unavailability of some key players," West Indies lead selector Desmond Haynes said in a statement.
That's one way of putting it.
Veteran ex-skipper Jason Holder opted out of the trip to focus on T20 cricket in the UAE, with an eye on this year's T20 World Cup, which will be held in the region in June.
He cites being inspired by the 2010 T20 World Cup held in the West Indies as being key to his decision.
"The main part of my decision is to prioritise playing as much T20 cricket as I can leading up to the T20 World Cup," he said in an interview with ESPNcricinfo.
"And of course, in doing so, there is also the opportunity to maximise your earnings.
"It all depends on what a player wants in terms of his career. It's a profession, and there's a massive window in terms of franchise cricket early in the year."
The 37-time West Indies Test captain said he was not turning his back on red-ball cricket though, and hoped to still be available to play for the West Indies in a series against England in July.
All-rounder Kyle Mayers, meanwhile, has opted to summer in South Africa, during a busy time for T20 franchise cricket.
It's becoming a common trend.
In the series just gone, Pakistan was without fast bowler Haris Rauf, who said he did not want to play Test cricket and instead came to Australia to play in the BBL for the Melbourne Renegades, while the other strike bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi was rested for the SCG Test, ostensibly for the upcoming T20Is.
South Africa's eggs are firmly in the T20 basket too
It's an issue that has reared its head for South Africa as well.
Just three squad members from the recent drawn home series against India will make the trip, with almost all the others playing in the newly launched SA20 competition.
The SA20 league is vitally important for Cricket South Africa's (CSA) perilous finances.
The six-team competition is owned by IPL franchise owners, with CSA a majority shareholder with a vested interest in their star players being available.
"The SA20 is a four-week tournament in a whole year. We can co-exist [with Test cricket]," former South Africa captain and the SA20 boss Graeme Smith said in an interview with ESPN cricinfo.
"We need to give it [the SA20] the best chance to succeed, and for that we need to have our best players available."
Last year, South Africa pulled out of an ODI series in Australia to launch the competition, but has been tied into playing the Test series in New Zealand.
CSA did try to rearrange the tour, but it was not possible, in part due to the proximity of the Australian Test matches in New Zealand at the end of February and the subsequent IPL.
The only other window was March 2025 — which is also IPL time.
"You want to play Test cricket as a cricketer, that's for sure," Aiden Markram told ESPN cricinfo.
"It's still my most favourite format of the game. [But] ultimately, the cards have been dealt and we are unfortunately going to miss that series in New Zealand."
No chance to play Test cricket
The other absentee for South Africa from the India series is Dean Elgar, who was captain against Australia last summer.
A big part of his decision, according to coach Shukri Conrad, is a lack of opportunity.
"The fact that we haven't got much Test cricket is part of the reason we arrived at the decision we arrived at," South Africa Test coach Shukri Conrad told reporters in Centurion ahead of the Boxing Day Test.
"Ideally, we would like to play more Test cricket because the more Test cricket we play, the more opportunity we've got to blood cricketers for the future.
"Sometimes we arrive at decisions like Dean's now because of a lack of cricket and a lack of opportunity to blood young players."
South Africa has had very few Test matches in the past year — and does not appear to have many options to play Tests in the future either.
During day one of the Boxing Day Test, much was made of a quirk of statistics that showed that Usman Khawaja had faced more balls in Test cricket in 2023 than the entire South Africa team.
That's not surprising though — Khawaja played in all 13 of the matches Australia had played, while South Africa, at that point, had played three.
The Proteas' overall total of Tests in 2023, four, is their lowest tally in a year (aside from the COVID-impacted 2020) since they played the same number in 1992 — the first year after their reintroduction to Test cricket.
Although South Africa will play more Tests in 2024, all are two-Test series and, between January 2025 and September 2026, they will not play a single red-ball match at home.
Excluding the COVID-affected year of 2020, there have been fewer Tests played this calendar year than any year since 2007.
Australia has played more Tests than any other team in 2023 with 13, while England and India are tied with the second most with eight each.
'A defining moment in the death of Test cricket'
Former Australian skipper Steve Waugh, with a screenshot of the South African Test squad, posted on Instagram that the key powers need to do more to protect Test cricket.
"Is this a defining moment in the death of Test cricket?" he wrote.
"Surely the ICC along the cricket boards of India, England and Australia must step in to protect the purest form of the game."
He suggested an equal match fee across the board as being a good starting point.
Khawaja agreed.
"Unfortunately, the issue is that some of the other countries aren't getting paid as well for playing international cricket," Khawaja told Fox Sports.
"I know this because I've talked to players from other nations.
"We've got to figure out a way for them [other countries] to be incentivised to play international and particularly Test cricket.
"That requires transparency from all cricket boards around the world to try to figure out how to pay the players the best way they can."
Waugh argued that Test cricket must not be allowed to be held to ransom.
"History and tradition must count for something," he wrote.
"If we stand by and allow profits to be the defining criteria the legacy of [Sir Don] Bradman, [WG] Grace and [Sir Garfield] Sobers will be irrelevant."
Pakistan promised much, but big-game experience overwhelmed them
Even if they were understrength and underrated coming in, Pakistan proved themselves to be fantastic tourists.
A summer that promised little other than an endless cycle of David Warner commentaries alternating between career hagiographies and character assassinations delivered two terrific Test matches.
Can the West Indies, so comprehensively thrashed just 12 months ago, continue that trend?
In the 2022/23 ABC Cricket magazine, Trinidadian journalist Fazeer Mohammed described last year's two-Test "skirmish" as confirmation of "the general disregard for the West Indies as a Test-playing entity", writing that "two Tests is not a series, rather the reluctant fulfilment of a statutory obligation".
That being said, two Test series are, sadly, now the norm.
The last series that had three Tests in it which did not include one of Australia, India or England was when Pakistan toured South Africa in 2018/19.
Under the ICC's Future Tours Programme, not a single series will be played over more than three Tests apart from against England, India or Australia until at least March 2027.
Former South Africa captain AB de Villiers said he was "not happy" that the recent series between India and the Proteas was limited to two Tests, but was clear for what was to blame.
"You have to blame the T20 cricket going around the world for that," he said on his YouTube channel.
"I do not know whom to blame, but I sense something is wrong.
"It [South Africa's inexperienced Test squad] sent shock waves around the cricketing world and has made it clear that Test cricket is under pressure, for that matter even ODI cricket and the whole system is turning around T20 cricket.
"The players, the board and coaches will turn towards where there is more money. You cannot blame them for thinking about their future with their family."
Cricket Australia chief Nick Hockley said during the SCG Test that it was the "preference" to have three-Test series mandated as a minimum going forward.
"We'll keep advocating and championing that," he said.
"And then as best as we possibly can, making sure that [when it comes to] domestic T20 competitions, we minimise the overlap for those countries where it is an important source of revenue, so that every country is prioritising international — and particularly Test — cricket."
Hockley said the South Africa-New Zealand situation was "a wake-up call for everyone" but "the belief is that the two [Test cricket and T20] can coexist" blaming the clash as "suboptimal scheduling".
"I think we in Australia … have always prioritised international cricket.
"But this has shone a light and certainly we'll be working with the ICC through scheduling groups to make sure those types of clashes don't manifest.
"Test cricket is really thriving in certain countries. And in that sense, it is a bit of a two-speed economy. The challenge is that we continue to support those countries that are struggling a little bit more in terms of Test cricket."
What that support looks like, when India, Australia and England hoover up the majority of the revenue, is less clear.
"It can't continue," New Zealand wicketkeeper-turned-commentator Ian Smith told Fox Sports during the Sydney Test of the disrespect being shown to Test cricket.
"Someone has to step up to protect this great game … and it has to be the powers that do it.
"You can't just muck about with it for the sake of a bit of T20."
Sports content to make you think... or allow you not to. A newsletter delivered each Friday.