I understand Cricket Australia chief executive Todd Greenberg will be asked hypothetical questions about where the game could be heading.<\/p>\n
His answers are important because they give cricket supporters an insight into the thinking and direction of Cricket Australia. Greenberg has said the possibility of Australia and England playing a Test in India is not currently being planned, but remains \u201copen for consideration\u201d.<\/p>\n
In my opinion, it should not even be a consideration.<\/p>\n
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By continuing you agree to our Terms<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n To be clear, Greenberg was not suggesting an Ashes Test would definitely be taken to India. It could be a standalone Test between Australia and England. However, we would be kidding ourselves if we pretended there was a genuine cricket reason for playing it there.<\/p>\n It would be a financial decision.<\/p>\n India is cricket\u2019s largest market, the IPL dominates the international calendar and the BCCI carries enormous financial power. Cricket Australia is already taking the opening match of the next BBL season between the Melbourne Renegades and Perth Scorchers to Chennai.<\/p>\n That tells us where the power in world cricket now sits.<\/p>\n I can understand a domestic T20 competition wanting to attract commercial investment. But an Australia-England Test is different. The BBL needs to fight for attention. The rivalry between Australia and England does not.<\/p>\n It does not need to be grown in India. It does not need to be repackaged or introduced to a new audience. It has almost 150 years of history behind it.<\/p>\n India has developed the Border-Gavaskar Trophy into one of the biggest and most fiercely contested series in world cricket. It is a brilliant rivalry and has become hugely important to Australian and Indian supporters.<\/p>\n But it is still second to the Ashes.<\/p>\n That is not disrespectful towards India. It is simply an acknowledgement that India cannot have the same historical or emotional connection to an Australia-England rivalry that has been passed through generations in those two countries. The grounds, conditions, crowds and history are part of what makes the contest special. The BGT is building its own history in Test cricket.<\/p>\n An Australia-England Test in India might attract a huge television audience and generate plenty of money, but what would the match actually represent?<\/p>\n We are already seeing tradition challenged with the 150th Anniversary Test at the MCG next March. The match is being played to celebrate the first Test between Australia and England at the same ground in 1877. Yet instead of playing it during the day with a red ball, Cricket Australia has scheduled a day-night Test with a pink ball.<\/p>\n Pink-ball cricket has a place whether we like it or not. Adelaide has built a strong identity around it. But why use it for a match specifically celebrating 150 years of Test cricket?<\/p>\n The traditional format has worked. The 1977 Centenary Test did not need to be reinvented to become one of the game\u2019s most memorable occasions.<\/p>\n My concern is that these decisions are initially presented as one-offs, experiments or opportunities. If they make money, they become evidence that the idea worked. Soon enough, they happen again and become part of the regular schedule.<\/p>\n That is what we have seen with pink-ball cricket, and an Australia-England Test in India could open another door.<\/p>\n Whether past players, current players or supporters agree with these decisions almost becomes irrelevant once they have been made. I can jump up and down as a former player and have my say, but the players selected will still have to turn up and play.<\/p>\n I just know that if I were fortunate enough to take the field in the 150th Anniversary Test, I would want to do it during the day with a red ball.<\/p>\n I would want traditional Test cricket to showcase the great game we play and respect the players and supporters who built its history\u2014past, present and future.<\/p>\n Financial power may be shaping cricket\u2019s direction, but not everything valuable in the game needs to be moved, modernised or sold. The Ashes became commercially powerful because of its tradition.<\/p>\n Cricket should be very careful about selling the thing that made it valuable in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I understand Cricket Australia chief executive Todd Greenberg will be asked hypothetical questions about where the game could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":833051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,740,44,1721,588],"class_list":["post-833050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-news","tag-opinion","tag-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833050","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=833050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=833050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=833050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=833050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}