Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting on Sunday opined that he is against the idea of four-day Test matches. Ponting’s disapproval came a day after Indian skipper Virat Kohli echoed similar sentiments.
“I’m against it but I’d like to hear from the people who are pushing it what the major reason is,” Ponting told an online portal managed by Cricket Australia’s digital content team as reported by IANS.
“I know we’ve had a lot of four-day games the last couple of years but what I’ve noticed in the last decade is how many drawn Test matches there have been, and I just wonder if they had have been all four-day Test matches through that period of time would we have had more drawn games.
“That’s one thing I don’t think anybody wants to see. I understand there is a commercial side to it, saving money and things like that and how they would start on a Thursday to finish on Sunday,” he added.
“I’d like to hear the other reasons behind it. I don’t understand it enough and I’m very much a traditionalist, so if something’s not really badly broken then why do we need to fix it or change it?”, he asked.
The world cricket governing body- ICC’s idea of reducing Test matches to four days was also rejected by some of the other greats of the game including batting legend Sachin Tendulkar. Tendulkar believed that the snatching the fifth day from the spinners would be like not allowing seamers to bowl on the first day of a Test match.
Ponting, a member of the MCC World Cricket Committee, also noted that the idea of four day-Tests was previously discussed in the MCC Committee but was voted down.
“Let’s wind the clock back two, three years ago, it was being discussed then. I know we had a vote at one of the meetings about putting a proposal forward to changing it and the overriding decision there was that we wanted to keep it as five days,” he said.
“Everyone will say the Test match game is badly broken because a lot of countries around the world aren’t getting much attendance to the games. We’re certainly lucky here in Australia and England that we do get good solid crowds for the Test match games played over five days. My overall opinion is to leave it the way it is and it seems to be working pretty well at the moment,” he concluded.