India vs England one-off Test: A rallying cry for more women’s Test cricket
India host England in a landmark Test match starting on Thursday. Although, what makes this Test ‘landmark’ is not entirely a cause for celebration, but just another reminder of the women’s game being devoid of red-ball cricket, a format which many players themselves believe to be the pinnacle of the sport.
The four-day contest, starting on December 14th in Mumbai, will be the first women’s Test match to be held in India since 2014 and only the eighth Test match overall within that period. The fact that this match comes almost six months after the last women’s Test, an enthralling five-day Ashes clash between England and Australia which saw attendance records being broken, also does not help capitalise on the buzz of that Ashes Test.
England captain Heather Knight.
The workload on players with the constantly increasing T20 franchise cricket to go along with international T20s and ODIs, combined with the challenges of switching from white-ball cricket to the multi-day red-ball game, are ever-prevalent barriers in the future of Tests.
However, players want to play more Test cricket; and in the case of teams other than Australia, England, India, and South Africa, at least some of it. The last time a Test match featured a team other than those four teams was back in 2007. All future Tests until at least 2025 will also feature one of just those four teams.
Take the example of New Zealand’s Sophie Devine and Suzie Bates, two of the biggest names in the women’s game, who have never played a Test match in their storied careers.
“They’re two of the biggest names in the women’s game and have been for such a long time and absolute legends of New Zealand cricket. They’ve never had a chance to play a Test match and by the looks of things aren’t going to have a chance any time soon because there doesn’t seem to be anything in the schedule,” Georgie Heath, freelance sports journalist and host of the Women’s Cricket Chat podcast, told the Sports Gazette.
Less teams playing few Tests, more problems
Having just four nations playing Tests would further increase the gap between those top teams and the rest despite the fact that many teams play limited-overs formats.
“The more a gulf could increase between those sides, the more chance there is that they’re just not going to do it, because they’ll be like, it just wouldn’t be fair for Australia to play against even Bangladesh in a Test match,” Heath said on the same.
Among those who play the little Test cricket there is, Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur recently called for not just more women’s Tests, but a domestic structure for red-ball cricket in the women’s game, the lack of which is a global problem. When Tests do come around, selectors and coaches are left hoping that players who have done well in white-ball formats would also be able to translate that form into Test cricket, rather than having the county and domestic system to rely on, as is the case in the men’s game.
India captain Harmanpreet Kaur.
While the amount of Test cricket on the schedule and its globalisation is still so less, it should be noted that the three-year international cricket cycle up to 2025 has seven Tests scheduled, as many as there have been in the past seven years.
A step in the right direction? No doubt. But it can also be argued that pivoting back to four-day contests after the success of the five-day 2023 Ashes Test is a step backwards. India’s back-to-back home fixtures against England and Australia are both four-day matches, and most of the remaining fixtures of this cycle are also expected to be four-day matches.
“It’s very difficult to get a result in a four-day Test as we’ve learned throughout history. We saw the five days at the women’s Ashes this summer actually came out with a result,” Heath said.
More five-day Tests a need of the hour
Women’s cricket is already battling for more Tests and having four-day matches that see very few win/loss outcomes is not helping the cause.
“We can’t just keep having four day test matches that have no result because that almost gives another indication of what’s the point if they’re all just going to end in a draw?” Heath added, further highlighting the importance of getting a result in the growth of women’s cricket.
“What is one more day? I know there’s all the financial sides of it, the monetary, the TV, the stadiums, whatever, but I just don’t get it. If you want sport to grow and continue, you’ve got to get a result from it.”
The 2023 Women’s Ashes Test match.
Getting a result at the end of an enthralling India vs England Test would be positive in that aspect and simply because Test cricket is returning to India after almost a decade. As Heath points out though, the more results four-days matches produce, the lesser inclination towards permanently scheduling five-day Tests from those in power, despite the fact that it is still not a valid argument against five-day Tests in the women’s game.
“I would just really like to see a result in this one because it’s been such a long time since we’ve seen an England-India test match in India and I’d really be interested to see how the England players adapt to those kinds of conditions.
“And there’s just something really special about Test cricket, always. I love it.” Don’t we all?
Why should the preservation of Test cricket happen only on the men’s side?
