First, I thought probably did you not want to give test cricket too much importance. But after that, I thought if they did not want to give test cricket too much importance they would have done that from the start. They have failed in the most important test match of the year. Part is they have failed so miserably but they are still not worried about it. I believe the selection should be controlled by the coaches now. Because the players are basically screwing up the selection process by having power in their hands. They are obviously choosing players by having an influence of favoritism inside them. And of course, the players have to be held accountable for their bad performance.
As a matter of fact, I am not a big fan of test cricket. But still, I would argue that players who are not interested in test cricket should not be a part of the test squad. While watching the WTC final, this was the impression that I got from the Indian players. It seemed as if they are paying just for the sake of it. The aggression and commitment that these same players were showing while participating in the IPL a few weeks ago was suddenly missing when they were playing against Australia at the Oval. In fact they looked quite happy when the match was over.
I could see that they did not give enough importance to the WTC final. And I don’t know why it felt like they had somewhere to go because the whole Indian team was always in a hurry. When the Indian team batted in their first innings, it felt like they were in a hurry.
Yeah, now things are going to be divided for the two formats like we will have white-ball and red-ball here things are tricky for the boards because they need to have few players set for the red-ball which give their best even across conditions and also have good first class practice which give them good amount of money and white-ball players just need to be settled in this format which will create good body language and success.
We're already having too many issues in different boards and white-ball is now also main source of income for the players and boards, so they need to reduce teams in red-ball and have two teams in all boards which will surely burden still a good way to stay in competition and increase quality level in WTC for the future. Having just 6 to 8 teams in red-ball format and going with 16 to 20 teams into white-ball will give better results and involvement from players as well.
Why don't they absolutely get rid of the test format? I think it would be better for almost every team and also for the future of cricket. It is just a waste of time at this point. Even the Ashes series is not very interesting. I know there is going to be some protest if they absolutely get rid of test cricket. But I believe those people who will protest to keep test cricket as a format, won’t actually watch a test cricket match for the whole five days themselves.