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Ashes shows Test cricket is still alive … but where are the Proteas?
What does the future hold for a team like the Proteas and young players hoping to make their mark in the Test arena?
Australia captain Pat Cummins celebrates after scoring the winning runs as England’s Jonathan Bairstow looks on during day five of the first Ashes Test in Birmingham, England earlier this week. Picture: Stu Forster/Getty Images
Another thrilling Ashes Test concluded late on day five at Edgbaston on Tuesday as Australia edged England in the first of five Tests.
Cricket fans were treated to a feast for the full five days, with all three results a possibility right until the final session of the match.
What was very clear throughout the fifth day and after the match, was that cricket fans, even neutral ones down here in South Africa, were glued to the action and lived through every delivery and run. The consensus: Test cricket is still tops!
And that is the case time and again, despite all the hullabaloo about the popularity and rise of T20 cricket and establishment of leagues and competitions all around the world.
Yes, the SA20 was a major success in this country earlier this year and it will again be the case in 2024, but ask any cricketer, man or woman, what format they prefer and it’s likely they’ll say first-class or Test cricket.
True test
It is still the true test, where grinding out an innings, where bowling over after over to try get a batter out, where setting fields shrewdly and where tactics and taking calculated risks properly come to the fore.
With world cricket organised the way it is, one’s forced to wonder where Test cricket is headed.
Will England, India and Australia still be considered the big draws and leaders in the game, how many Tests will they play compared to teams such as South Africa, New Zealand, Pakistan, and other Test-playing nations, or will T20 cricket be even more dominant in 20 years from now?
The South Africa A team are currently in Sri Lanka, playing the second of their unofficial “Tests”.
But with the Proteas not in action in red ball cricket until later this year and their Test schedule hugely curtailed on the ICC Future Tours Programme, what is the point even of the likes of Senuran Muthusamy (7/122, 5/53 and 6/101) and Tristan Stubbs (117 batting at number three) performing well and giving the selectors something to think about?
What are their Proteas prospects when the Proteas hardly play Tests nowadays?
