{"id":46855,"date":"2025-08-06T03:24:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T03:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/46855\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T03:24:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T03:24:10","slug":"cricket-news-2025-mark-taylor-exclusive-on-four-day-test-matches-despite-india-vs-england-thriller-ending-on-fifth-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/46855\/","title":{"rendered":"Cricket news 2025, Mark Taylor exclusive on four day Test matches despite India vs England thriller ending on fifth day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian cricket<\/a> legend Mark Taylor<\/a> has called for Tests<\/a> to become four-day affairs despite England and India ending in a thriller on Monday night<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The former Test captain’s opinion flies in the face of others, including South African great Herschelle Gibbs, who are using The Oval’s epic to highlight a need to maintain the status quo.<\/p>\n

While the length of Test matches has varied over the past century and a half, five days has been the typical duration for the best part of the last 70 years.<\/p>\n

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The International Cricket Council (ICC)<\/a> has regularly toyed with reducing matches to four days, and in recent years a number of four-day matches have been scheduled featuring smaller sporting nations like Zimbabwe and Ireland.<\/p>\n

Bigger matches – featuring the likes of Australia, England, India, New Zealand, and South Africa – are almost always played over five days, while the World Test Championship final has a reserve day which allows it to leak into a sixth due to weather.<\/p>\n

\"India<\/p>\n

India bowler Mohammed Siraj celebrates after winning the fifth Test against England.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

With the art of long-form batting declining due to the surge in white-ball cricket, many Test matches don’t even require a fifth day anymore. Many finish within three days.<\/p>\n

Still, a strong view is held by purists that five days is the ideal length to allow for a match to be completed, with rain and bad light often forcing long stoppages.<\/p>\n

India and England entered day five at The Oval needing four wickets or 35 runs to complete victory. It set up a mouthwatering hour of Test cricket in which India ultimately bowled England out to square the series 2-2 and retain the shield.<\/p>\n

It is being described as one of the best Test matches ever.<\/p>\n

While the sporting world was in awe of the London thriller, Taylor remains steadfast in his belief the match should not have returned for a fifth day.<\/p>\n

“For the last 10 years I’ve been an advocate for four-day Test cricket,” the former Test captain told Wide World of Sports.<\/p>\n

“And even though I know people will still say ‘Well Mark you wouldn’t have got that game yesterday (Monday)’, well I don’t agree with that thinking.<\/p>\n

“I still believe the game will change dramatically once you make it shorter games. People will adapt to those conditions.<\/p>\n

“Does 55 minutes on day five mean it’s great to have a day five? Or would players adapt enough so that you wouldn’t need the 55 minutes, and I still think you’ll get very good Test match cricket.<\/p>\n

“I’m only trying to move the schedule with the times. Everyone talks about so much T20 cricket and how it’s hard to fit it all in, well I think making it four-day cricket will help that situation.<\/p>\n

“The players are scoring quicker these days. The grounds are getting smaller, the bats are getting better, the run rates are up, wickets per day seems to be up.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Chris Woakes of England walks out to bat with his left arm in a sling.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

“It all points, to me, to making it a four-day game of cricket and making it Thursday-Friday-Saturday-Sunday… then having a three-day break and you can do it all again.<\/p>\n

“It gives you time to program things in. If players want a three-day break – which they say they do and I accept that – then you can set your seven-day week around a four-day Test and a three-day break.”<\/p>\n

In professional golf, tournaments begin on Thursday and finish on Sunday. Players have three days off before the next one begins, and Taylor wants cricket to follow a similar schedule.<\/p>\n

The upcoming Ashes series between Australia and England will begin on November 21 and may not finish until January 8.<\/p>\n

That seven-week block could be reduced to five weeks under Taylor’s revamped Test format, theoretically allowing players to then take part in more Big Bash League matches and other T20 leagues where they can make significant cash.<\/p>\n

One issue Test cricket constantly grapples with is slow over rates, with the ICC handing out fines and penalty points to teams regularly for failing to speed up play.<\/p>\n

\"Ravi<\/p>\n

Ravi Shastri (left) and Mark Taylor pictured with the Border-Gavaskar Trophy ahead of the 2024-25 Sydney Test.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Taylor says the crackdown would have to be more severe if Tests were to shorten.<\/p>\n

“That has been an ongoing discussion for as long as I’ve been alive. That’s an ongoing issue, no doubt about that. I think you want a certain amount of overs in a day’s play,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I’ve never really been an advocate of penalty runs, but I see they’re starting to bring them in now for white-ball cricket, and I’d be very interested to keep an eye on that and see how it goes and maybe there is a thought about that for Test cricket.<\/p>\n

“If you are short (of overs bowled) at the end of a day’s play, you just add runs, and you get people moving. Or you deduct runs from a side that bowls their overs slow, or something like that.<\/p>\n

“It’s something we’ve got to continue to explore if we go down the path of having a four-day game. We want the game to quicken up, we want people to keep watching it. Which they are doing, and it’s terrific that these series are really good.<\/p>\n

“But there is always ways to look to improve the game.”<\/p>\n

Supporters of four-day Test cricket argue the change would allow more matches to be scheduled each year.<\/p>\n

South Africa – who beat Australia in the WTC final at Lord’s earlier this year – play very little Test cricket in the current cycle and don’t play at home until October 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian cricket legend Mark Taylor has called for Tests to become four-day affairs despite England and India ending…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-46855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}