By Niharika Raina
New Delhi, May 19 (IANS): Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting stated that with the proliferation of T20 franchise cricket leagues around the world, he is unhappy over the landscape of the cricketing world veering more towards tournaments in the shortest format.
2023 has been a year in which T20 leagues in UAE, South Africa and soon-to-be in the USA have cramped cricketing calendars, apart from a plethora of T10 leagues mushrooming around. It has meant that various stakeholders in the cricketing world are worried about the future of international cricket, mainly Test matches.
"It is getting a harder story to tell, I must admit, with the amount of white-ball cricket the younger generations are actually seeing. The landscape of cricket is definitely changing to become a more domestic-based T20 team which I am not happy about."
"As a young boy growing up in Tasmania, all I wanted to do was be good enough to play a game for my club team, my state team and hopefully play for Australia in the Test format."
"Test cricket is still a benchmark for a cricketer, and to have a long-established Test career is how we judge players. Test cricket is the pinnacle, and I was lucky enough to play 168 Test matches which suggests I like it very much," said Ponting on the sidelines of the official curtain-raiser event of the WTC Final between India and Australia, to be held from June 7-11.
Ponting also feels the International Cricket Council (ICC) should play a role in ensuring that players from not-so-big Test-playing nations are paid well to play the longest format of the game.
"That question has a different answer in different countries. It has become increasingly difficult to groom the youngsters in the Caribbean (West Indies) for instance who want to chase the dream of playing Test cricket."
"The payment system in the Caribbean compared to some of the franchise leagues, it doesn't match up and Sri Lanka will be the same and Bangladesh will be the same. It is not the case in India, England and Australia though."
"You are paid well to play Test cricket for your country and most aspire to play the Test match game. There is a role to play for the ICC here and make the payments a bit more even across international Test cricket to attract players from these different countries who want to play for their country."
"It is something that has been spoken about at a very high level at the ICC to help that. But in India, the feeling I get is that most of these youngsters aspire to wear the baggy blue cap and the same is in Australia too," he added.
Quizzed on what needs to be done to increase the number of women's Test matches, Ponting remarked, "I think it is very simple as far as women's cricket is concerned -- they have to play more. The Australian women maybe play only one Test match a year, and they are probably one of the best sporting teams in the last 10-12 years."
"To promote the game, they need to be playing more and by more, I mean not One-Day cricket but Test matches. We would love to see Australia's women's team play a Test against India a lot more, and that is where as a young woman growing up, you will learn, and before you know it, we have attracted a lot of women to play," he concluded.