Cricket News: Is The Rise of T20 and restriction of countries playing tests curbing new talent ?

Former Indian coach Ravi Shastri provided a unique solution in such a state. He said, "You cannot have 12 teams or ten teams. You keep the top six, keep the quality and respect quality over quantity. That's the only way you open a window for other cricket to be played." 

He elaborated his above statement of quality over quantity, but many former and current cricketers disagreed with the words and countered the argument. 

Aakash Chopra, on his Youtube channel, said, "Test cricket can happen in tiers but if only the top six play Test cricket, I feel world cricket will be in trouble, including Test cricket, which all of us are saying is a very important format and will not go anywhere."

He added, "Who will decide the six countries, the top six in the rankings? Let's say that's the case, what will the others do? He (Shastri) said in the discussion that if you go out of the six, then you have no job and teams will come up from below. But who will come up from below because only six are playing Test cricket and the others are not playing at all."

The crafty off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin had a different take on Test cricket. He said on his YouTube channel, "when 3-4 nations play, teams like Ireland won't get won't get the opportunity to play."

Carrying plenty of experience in the shortest and longest format of the game, he said, "You can ask me what's the relation between Test cricket and T20 cricket. Only when you play Test cricket, your first-class structure will get better. And only when your first-class structure is good, people will get more opportunities. And players who do well in first-class cricket mould their game according to T20 cricket. That's how cricket has shaped up,"

Ashwin raised concern about domestic cricket being dead in West Indies and Ireland. He remarked, "How will you strengthen first-class cricket? If cricketers don't play tests, their interest in first class will be over, and players cannot evolve without playing tests. "For that, Test cricket needs to be relevant in your country. If Test cricket is irrelevant, they won't play it with full interest. I'm currently in [the] West Indies, and here we can see that first-class cricket is almost gone. There are multiple T20 tournaments," he added. 

Harsha Bhogle tweets to support the statement and wrote, "The point @ashwinravi99 makes about the potential decline of first-class cricket if test cricket is restricted to a few countries is entirely valid. The larger question that cricket boards must answer is how serious they are about fc cricket. Hopefully, the answer is "very"."

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