Introduction

What is common with Football, NFL, Badminton, Tennis? They are all popular sports people love to watch.

The reason they are popular is because the games are short and great for television viewing. This is what a sport fan and the new generation want, games which are short, competitive and have suspense attached to it. That’s the romance in sports fans love to watch.

T20 cricket has become the most popular format in cricket and the popularity continues to grow

While cricket pundits, commentators and ex-players make a futile but valiant effort to convince the audience about how Test Cricket is the ultimate format, the fans have given their thumbs up to the shortest format as the most popular format in cricket today.

Presented by: Raghunath Nair

Date: 03/06/2023

T20 Cricket Overview

The shortest format of the game, the T20 internationals have become the most popular cricket format among the television audience and currently the second most watched sports event in the world. The new format has attracted a whole new fan base and is reshaping the way the game is played and viewed.

T20 format encourages players to take more risk and play an attacking game without having the fear of losing wickets due to the shortened format. This makes the whole event more exciting for the fans to watch.

With the availability of OTT platforms, there is a paradigm shift in how we watch Television. Contents have to also evolve according to likes and interest keeping the TV viewers in mind. The most revenue generated for sports is from telecasting rights. Sports too need to reinvent and deliver the content considering the likes and preference of the television audience.

While other sports have made little change in their approach, cricket thanks to the introduction of the T20 format is tailormade for television which has now made it the second most watched sport in television history

T20 format allows the game to start and end in a 3–4 hour window. With such a small window of play, organisers can schedule games according to prime-time slots.

T20 format has evolved itself into franchise sport in addition to international sport which has helped the sport immensely to spread the game similar to NBA, NFL, Major league Baseball and Football.

While Countries play International T20 tournaments along with world cup tournaments, the franchise sport in this format allows the players to not only play for their national side but also participate in a foreign league when they are not in national duty. Players make a good earning playing such leagues

Impact on Test Matches 

Test Popularity on the decline

Test Match cricket has seen a decline in attendance which has seen boards struggling to generate revenue from Test Cricket

Test Match is played for a period of 5 days which will include weekdays and played during the day. This becomes an issue for television viewership as office goers will not be able to watch the game during the day.

Not all teams are given Test status as Test requires additional abilities of patience , skill and temperament. The teams have to have graduate themselves from shorter format cricket to the Test Match level. Getting a Test Status was the ultimate goal of any cricket playing nation but these sentiments have slightly eroded with the introduction of the popular T20 format.

With the tight cricket calendar, it becomes the last priority for cricket boards to schedule Test Match Cricket

T20 popularity on the Rise

T20 game is played mostly in the evening which allows more viewership. The shortened format allows results to be delivered which becomes a great evening get together for the family.

With the popularity of the T20 format, more and more teams prefer to organise T20 tournaments which gives more viewership, spectators in the ground and the revenue earned in a 3-to-4-hour game, is at par with revenues earned in a Test match spanning 5 days.

England, New Zealand, Australia and India are the top test teams in the world and these teams prefer to play against each other. But these teams are happy to play T20 format with lower ranked test teams as the games can still be competitive.

One Day Cricket is also fighting for existence

With T20 format a shorter version of the 50 over format, is the choice of players and spectators. As the game evolved from 60 over format to 50 over format, 60 over format became unpopular. Similarly, from a 50 over format to a 20 over format has made 50 over format not as popular is it used to be. The fanbase for the ODI Format may now be limited to worldcup tournaments only .

2023 maybe the last worldcup for the ODI Format and the format maybe at its last phase

Compromised Skills

In the fast-paced T20 Format, batting has taken an ultra-aggressive mode which has changed the style of batsmanship over the years. In test cricket, batsman has to be patient and display sound technique to face bowlers. In T20 cricket, batters are required to be looking out for quick runs and fielders are placed in defensive position to cut down on runs and not necessarily placed as an attacking fielding option. While an edge in T20 may find the boundary, a similar shot in test may result in a wicket. It is difficult for a batsman to change his batting style for different formats and hence often a T20 specialist may come as an average Test Player or vice versa.

Players choosing to play the shorter format instead of Test

There are evidences in the recent past, wherein players have refused to accept their country board contracts to play for franchise T20 league.

Players play their best for a 7-12 years period. During this time, players would want to make money and become financially secure during their post-retirement period outside of the sport. Money become a big motivation and playing in a lucrative T20 league becomes an obvious choice.

Even in Indian domestic cricket, players pick the shorter formats to play and avoid playing 4 day cricket.

T20 cricket have prompted players to take early retirement from International Test match duties to focus on the shortest format of the game and be available for lucrative franchise league T20 offers

Conclusion

While the purest has argued that the techniques in T20 may not be ideal for Test Match cricket, T20 format has directly and indirectly influenced the longer format of the game.

While there is an influence of T20 Cricket on Traditional Test matches, not all can be considered bad for the game. Test matches have become more aggressive, and more result oriented. They unfortunately do not last the whole 5 days.

ICC introduced the pink ball Test matches to bring in the additional fan base to watch live Test match post office hours. But such matches are not a common phenomenon and may have limited influence on the game’s popularity

While we at supersports360.com believe there is some evidence in the recent past to show a slight revival of the popularity of Test matches, the game with its traditional influence may still be walking on thin ice.

In the recent past, after Afghanistan, no new teams have got Test status. In fact, some of the Test playing countries are hardly playing the longest format of the game which may be concerning

In football, franchise/club football are more popular over international matches except during a World cup event. Cricket too will see a similar move and T20 cricket will see franchise games being more popular than internationals

This means Test Cricket may need to bring more and more innovation and changes in the game to keep it relevant.

Test match to survive, ODI format may need to be sacrificed and discontinued in the near future.

Franchise T20 Tournaments is here to stay and will remain to be the most popular, followed by International T20s and then Test match cricket.

While scheduling Cricket bilateral series, if boards can drop ODI series, reduce T20 Internationals to 3-5 games, the additional window may see a revival of Test Cricket

The rise of T20 Cricket has made significant impact on the game and with growing popularity may decide the future for Test and ODI cricket.