Cricket is perhaps the only game with three different formats that are played seriously at the international level. While there are different versions of football, rugby, basketball among others, they haven’t superseded their respective original formats.
The one-dayers and then the T20s, however, have threatened to eclipse Test as the foremost form of cricket and the authorities have made efforts to keep the longest format alive and kicking. The initiation of Test championship is one big step in that direction but before that came in, D/N affairs had been introduced to attract more people. While the pink ball has definitely added to the excitement of Test cricket, can it replace red-ball as the primary format? Virat Kohli doesn’t believe so.
“I don't think this can become (the staple diet of Test cricket),” asserted the Indian skipper on the eve of the second Test, a D/N match, against Bangladesh. “In my opinion, this should not become the only way Test cricket is played because then you're losing ...that nervousness in the first session in the morning... Yes, you can bring excitement into Test cricket, but you can't purely make Test cricket based on just entertaining people. You know the entertainment of Test cricket lies in the fact that a batsman is trying to survive a session and a bowler is trying to get a batsman out, and if people don't respond to that, too bad. Whoever wants to respond to that will come and watch Test cricket.”
A strong supporter of Test cricket, Kohli opined that one can’t force people to like the longer format. “If I don't like Test cricket, you can't push me to like Test cricket,” he noted. “If someone gets an excitement or a boost from watching that battle between bat and ball and a great session of Test cricket, in my opinion, those are the people that should come and watch Test cricket. Because they understand what's going on. Yes, it is great to create a buzz around Test cricket, the first three-four days here are sold out, which is amazing,” he pointed out.
Kohli, who recently batted for having fewer permanent Test centres, once again underlined the need for having a fixed calendar.
“I think Rahul (Dravid) bhai mentioned this recently that if we have a Test calendar, where the series and the Tests are fixed then obviously it'll bring a lot more system and sync into people planning their calendars as well. It (pink ball Test) can't be random, saying ‘you never know when a Test is going to arrive.’ If you have centres marked and you have Test calendars marked then obviously people will have an idea of as to how to plan to get to those Tests - people are not going to leave their work and come to a Test match if they don't know what's going on. They can plan in advance, like you plan for anything in life. So, I think this can be a one-off thing, it should not in my opinion become a regular thing.”