Greg Chappell worried over where the future of Test cricket could be heading

Sydney, Feb 10 (SocialNews.XYZ) Former India head coach Greg Chappell is worried about where the future of Test cricket could be heading. Chappell, who scored 7110 runs in 87 Tests for Australia, believes that the longest format of the game will be 'virtually dead' if countries like Australia, India and England continue producing competitive red-ball sides.

"Looking at what's happening with Test cricket and how few countries are playing much Test cricket, I suppose the disappointment of England's performance in the Ashes series just highlights how the game has neglected Test cricket. To produce Test cricketers takes a lot of work," said Chappell on SEN Mornings show on Thursday.

Chappell was critical of how Australia has scheduled its Sheffield Shield tournament due to the Big Bash League (BBL). "I think it's only the countries like England, Australia, India and to a lesser extent South Africa and Pakistan that have still got pretty vital domestic cricket. But even that, just look at the Australian example, the Big Bash takes out a big chunk of the Australian summer and the Sheffield Shield is slotted in around it as though it's an afterthought - it can't be an afterthought."

Chappell is aware of how much effort development of Test cricketers takes in Australia. "To develop top class Test batsmen takes many years and a lot of hard work by a lot of people and a lot of competition. I've just seen how much it has undermined our development of players."

"We spend many millions of dollars - 20 to 30 million dollar on our domestic cricket and our development programs, and even we're struggling to produce top class batsmen and I think we're in better shape than most."

Chappell further pointed out that for the small nations to produce good Test cricketers will be hard in future. "It's really only the sub-continental teams where there is still a lot of unstructured cricket being played in the streets. With big numbers, they're always going to produce some champion cricketers, but we're finding it harder and harder."

"The lesser nations, the ones who haven't got either very vital and viable domestic cricket or just haven't got the funds to be able to do that, it's going to be increasingly more difficult for them to produce competitive Test teams. All of a sudden, we're going to have maybe three or four countries playing Test cricket and I think if we get to that stage, Test cricket is virtually dead."

Source: IANS