We are not there yet, but the divorce between Test cricket and T20 might occur sooner than anticipated in these columns.
When fears of the shorter format eating into the longer one were first expressed, it soon became clear that keeping them separate — perhaps with different governing bodies — might ensure that both thrived.
Since then, T20 has become more sophisticated, with a whole new set of strategic and tactical advances. The all-format player is becoming rarer, and might even die out within a generation. A.B. de Villiers and Virat Kohli, rather than providing a peep into a settled future, might actually be the remnants of a more fluid past.
Bowlers have adapted more readily to the shorter game, with leg spinners in particular emerging as the heroes in many tournaments. Samuel Badree even became a successful opening bowler.
The finest Test players are not necessarily sought after in domestic T20 tournaments. England captain Joe Root is a good example; he missed out on the IPL partly owing to the fact that he might not be available for the whole season, but importantly because he doesn’t fit into the T20 scheme of things. Likewise Hashim Amla.
The IPL auction tends to be harsher on foreign players, but because of that it also throws light on the precise nature of the requirements for the format. Adaptability was the key; now it seems to be specialisation.
T20 batsmanship requires a different set of skills — and over a decade’s worth of statistics, the 20-over innings has been broken down into segments that are then worked on. What is a batsman’s record in the 11th to 15th overs? Reading the bowling is one thing, but how is he reading the field to find the gaps?
Even Virat Kohli, who still looks like a Test batsman while playing T20, pulls out his arrows from a different quiver. His profound understanding of angles allows him to visualise where a gap will develop before anyone can see it on the field.
Ironically, while T20 itself abhors the pure specialist, looking at all times for the player who brings more than one skill to the game, the various formats seek specialists unique to each.
England coach Trevor Bayliss’s suggestion that T20 internationals be done away with because they serve no purpose is a reiteration of the International Cricket Council’s original rule limiting the number of internationals in a season.
There were two reasons for that — the feeling that T20 would always be a poor cousin of other internationals, and the conviction that the workload of the players needed to be reduced. Bayliss’s suggestion is based on the latter reason; if a player consistently plays all formats, his career is not likely to last long, he feels. Burnout is a genuine problem.
In the meantime the poor cousin has begun to generate more money and greater public interest. Eliminating the internationals would only force players to choose between white ball and red ball cricket.
It is a choice that England’s leg spinner Adil Rashid has made by giving up first class cricket altogether with his county Yorkshire, to focus on the shorter formats.
This is either a short-sighted policy or demonstrates great foresight depending on how you see the sport itself evolving. The shorter the format the more likely that it will exhaust all its possibilities as a competitive sport. Rashid is betting that it will not happen in his time as active player.
But he is right about one thing, though. There is too much money in the T20 domestic leagues around the world now for these to be made subservient to the internationals. Increasingly, as players choose between white ball and red ball cricket, the divide between the two will grow. And that’s not such a bad thing. Rashid’s decision is only another instance of a player recognising which side his bread is buttered on.
Already, by default most of the West Indies players are exclusive T20 specialists thanks to the wrangle with their cricket board. Most countries have specialist T20 players — Suresh Raina is a good example in the ongoing series in South Africa — and soon there might not even be an overlap, with teams fielding 11 players who only play one specific format. Bayliss’s fear then will not be valid. “Too much cricket” might not be a complaint of the future.
Currently, by tagging on T20 series to bilateral meetings, tours do become overlong, and it is Test cricket which suffers. Had there been no T20 matches in South Africa, India might have agreed to play four Tests as originally proposed instead of the three they finally did.
The counter to that, of course, is that it is now the shorter format that brings the spectators in, with everything it implies in terms of increased financial benefits all around.
The future arrives in its own time, at its own pace. But sometimes coming events cast their shadow on the present. Divorces are not usually good news. But this one between Test cricket and T20 might just be.
