Australia will play a Test cricket series against Bangladesh in the footy season. This is not good
Opinion
Australians like to style ourselves as the white knights of Test cricket, preserving the purity of the five-day game against the sugary onslaught of hit-and-giggle fairy floss.
Our actions, however, have spoken louder than our words. This week’s Test series against Bangladesh in Darwin continues a historical pattern of Australia’s administrators saying something absolute and noble about our commitment to global Test cricket while doing something studded with caveats and qualifications.
Bangladesh, a cricket-mad country of 178 million, formerly part of India and then Pakistan before independence in 1971, is a good place to start the argument. From Thursday, Australia will pat itself on the back for playing the part of generous host, deigning to slide two Test matches against Bangladesh into the shadow of the football season.
It’s the first time Australia have hosted Bangladesh in 23 years. Since Bangladesh’s admittance to Test cricket in 2000, Australia’s role in their inclusion has been pathetic, shameful and grossly hypocritical. Bangladesh have played 158 Tests; six against Australia, and two in Australia.
Only Ireland and Afghanistan, recent Test nations, have played Bangladesh less than Australia have. India and England have played Bangladesh a combined 25 times. The load of incorporating this huge country into the Test cricket world has fallen on New Zealand, Pakistan, the West Indies, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, who have accounted for 80 per cent of Bangladesh’s Test cricket participation.
A debate is growing about whether Test cricket will be formally divided into two tiers, and India, as the maharaja of the game, will be blamed. But for the last century, international Test cricket has always tended to slip into two tiers, and Australia has been the chief offender.
The standard Australian cricket follower will complain that Bangladesh are not good enough to warrant a full Test series in our summer, but if any country has handicapped the progress of new Test nations, it is Australia.
For a powerhouse, Australia has a long history of neglecting the game it postures to preserve and elevate. In New Zealand’s first 44 years as a Test cricket nation, Australia played them – count it – once.
England, over the same period, played New Zealand 45 times. In India’s first half-century in Test cricket, Australia played them in nine series; England played them in 18. So it goes for all of Test cricket’s expansion: while presenting ourselves as the bastion of the five-day game, Australia has been systematically lax in helping it grow.
In Don Bradman’s 20-year career, during which Test cricket expanded and was played in India, New Zealand, the West Indies in addition to South Africa, Bradman played overseas in one country: England.
In Test cricket’s long expansion cycle from the 1930s to the 1990s, Australia lagged England in supporting newcomers. As one past Australian Cricket Board chairman said, we strongly support new Test cricket nations, just not in the playing sense.
Australia’s role in the future of Test cricket is critical, with the next ICC Future Tours Programme (FTP) for 2027-2031 to be negotiated and announced this year.
In its self-designated role as Test cricket’s chief proponent, coming off an Ashes summer that was the most-watched in history, Australia will be under the microscope.
Are we really dedicated to the survival of Test cricket, or just our treasured “marquee” series?
Much has been made of Australia’s schedule of 20 Tests over the next 10 months. We host Bangladesh then tour South Africa after an embarrassing gap of eight years. We host New Zealand for a truncated four-Test summer. Then, 11 of those 20 Tests will be against India and England, with Australia returning to its pattern of consolidating Test cricket among an elite club.
In its 150th year, Test cricket is at a crossroads. Despite the recent inclusion of Ireland and Afghanistan (neither of whom Australia has played), the competitive Test world has shrunk since its high-water mark in the 1990s. Standards in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the West Indies and Zimbabwe have dropped alarmingly in those three decades. At a time when cricket’s overall popularity has grown, the mega-trend of Test cricket has been one of contraction.
India and Twenty20 cricket are commonly put up as the bogeymen of Test cricket. But India, amidst its rise to financial dominance, have done more for expanding the five-day game than Australia did when it held the whip hand.
Since the advent of the IPL in 2008, India have played a whopping 61 Test series against nine opponents (Pakistan, for political reasons, being the glaring exception). England have played 66 Test series against eight opponents.
By comparison, Australia have played 57 Test series against seven opponents. We are not carrying our load, either in diversity or quantity, and while preaching the gospel of the five-day game, Australia have been extremely keen to fill its calendar gaps with the type of international white-ball series that we say we value less.
As the next FTP is developed, Australia will make noise about its commitment to the five-day game.
India will be characterised as the threat, with its love of lucrative white-ball cricket. Hands will be wrung about the declining standards of Test cricket and the separation of the game into two tiers.
The truth is Australia’s commitment to Test cricket has always been on our narrow terms.
If Test cricket has split into two tiers already, the big country that has borne most responsibility for that is Australia, which says one thing but does the other.
With football occupying eyeballs, Bangladesh will be made to feel fortunate for the gift of a second tour here, when, if Australia were really committed to global Test cricket, we would host them in summer.
The next FTP will determine if Test cricket really has a broad international future.
Australia can’t hide. If we care about the global health and survival of the long game as much as we say we do, we must put our money where our mouth is.
Malcolm Knox is a journalist, author and columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald.
