Obviously red ball cricket is romanticized. But I don't agree when you say that there is a lot of respect in playing test cricket and major players want to play it. Test cricket remains popular only among the generation that is over 40 years old. And even they watch it only when a major series, such as the Anderson-Tendulkar, Ashes or the Border-Gavaskar is scheduled. Players who prefer red ball cricket are very low in number, as most of them prioritize the franchise T20 leagues.
When modern cricket was born in the early 18th century, the matches were played for an unlimited period of time. Then in 1877, the first Test match was played between England and Australia in Melbourne. About 100 years later, in 1971, the first One Day International (ODI) was played. And 32 years later, in 2003, the T20I game began.
Maybe Test cricket is not as popular as it used to be, but Test cricket is still considered the most respected format. In this context, we can see that every player of a team dreams of playing as many Test matches as possible.
Even now, when Test matches are played between big teams, a different kind of madness is seen in cricket.
This old format of cricket lives on with the old culture of cricket for thousands of years.