Adelaide, Nov 23 (IANS) Former Australian captain Greg Chappell has endorsed the idea of four-day Tests to shake up the longest form of the game.
Chappell’s endorsement comes just before the first ever day-night Test match between Australia and New Zealand which starts here from November 27.
Chappell, who was involved in the breakaway World Series of Cricket in the late 1970s that introduced day-night cricket, colour uniforms and white balls, isn’t afraid of changing Test cricket if it means the game will continue to thrive.
“I am a traditionalist but I am not that frightened by four-day Test matches,” Chappell was quoted as saying by cricket.com.au.
“It was only the early part of last century they had unlimited days for Test cricket, never ending Tests, they used to go seven or eight days. In this day and age you have to consider these things. If you played enough overs in the day, and I think they’re talking about 100 overs in the day in four days, that’s 400 overs of Test cricket.”
“A lot of Test matches haven’t gone that far. It’s a hell of a lot of cricket – you should be able to get a result in that time. I think any business, and sport is a business, I think more than anything else if you don’t continue to be evolving you’re likely to be going backwards. I think we should look at all these things.”
Chappell also said he would want to limit the number of overs to be moved to 100 in the first innings adding that it would not make the batsmen suffer and added that the game needs a Test championship.
“The idea of a Test Championship has been put up a few times and it hasn’t got through the voting system at this point,” Chappell said.
“Each of the sovereign nations want to have some control over when and how they play their Test cricket. I would love the idea over a four-year period that you have a Test Championship and a semi-final and a final at a venue each four years. Every Test match then would have meaning.”
