I Like The Challenge Of A Five-Day Test Match: Steve Smith

Not a long ago, England and Wales Cricket Board and Cricket South Africa supported ICC’s proposal for four-day World Test Championship matches for the upcoming 2023-2031 cycle. A four-day Test match was last played in July 2019 between England and Ireland. South Africa and Zimbabwe also played the four-day Test match once in 2017.

Four-day games were approved by the global cricket body, International Cricket Council in the year 2017 itself but when it comes to elite level, the four-day format has been limited to matches between the major powers and less established teams. The ICC cricket committee will discuss reducing the five-day format to four days in an upcoming meeting.

ICC and member boards are thinking about freeing up a hectic international schedule which will also cut down player workload. If things go as per the plan, then ICC administrators would make use of the remaining time for T20 formats.

Meanwhile, ICC’s proposal to change the current Test format has not gone down well with Virat Kohli, Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting, Faf du Plessis and Mahela Jayawardene as they all opposed the idea.

Steve Smith says he is comfortable with five-day format

Meanwhile, Steve Smith expressed his opinion about the five-day Test format. He said that he is comfortable with the five-day Test match while adding that he likes the challenge of this format.

“I am comfortable with five days. I like the challenge of a five-day Test match. Obviously, there has been a lot of talk about the four-day Tests, but my personal opinion is I like five days. I don’t make the decisions obviously of how it all works out but my opinion is five-days Tests is what it is all about,” he signed off.

It is worth mentioning here that Andrew Strauss, Rahul Dravid and Shaun Pollock are also on the cricket committee. Former India captain and former coach Anil Kumble, who leads the cricket committee of the sport’s governing body, said that ICC’s proposal will be discussed in detail in the next round of the ICC meetings, which is to held in Dubai from March 27-31.

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