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Earlier this month, Afghanistan superstar Rashid Khan<\/a> said there was “no target in Test cricket.” His priorities illustrate certain aspects about the state of our game today, writes Abhishek Mukherjee.<\/p>\n \u2018There is no target\u2019 <\/p>\n A few minutes had passed since the Gujarat Titans had pulled off a heist against the Delhi Capitals<\/a>, thanks to David Miller<\/a>\u2019s denied single and Kuldeep Yadav\u2019s<\/a> run-out. Rashid Khan, who had been magnificent that evening, showed up at the post-match press conference.<\/p>\n Naturally, he was asked whether he would come with the Afghan Test side for their first Test match in India since 2018, from June 6. Rashid\u2019s response \u2013 a departure from the usual cliches on the supremacy of Test cricket \u2013 was refreshing.<\/p>\n He spoke about his \u201ccrazy\u201d workload in his previous Test, at Bulawayo in January 2025, a game he had played against medical advice. \u201cIf you don\u2019t want to play cricket, you keep playing red-ball cricket because it\u2019s not going to support you,\u201d the doctor had warned him. \u201cYou won\u2019t be [there] for longer to play for Afghanistan.\u201d When Rashid ignored his advice and bowled 55 overs, the doctor warned him again: \u201cNo, you can\u2019t do that to yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n This time Rashid listened. \u201cI will just take it easy, get myself ready for the [2027] World Cup. Imagine something happens to my back in that Test match. I can\u2019t play 100 Test matches. If you\u2019re playing one Test in a year, I can\u2019t play for 100 years. And there is no target in Test cricket.\u201d<\/p>\n Easily the biggest name in Afghan cricket history, Rashid has played only six Test matches since his debut in 2018, and only two in this decade. It is not that it is not his strong format: he has three ten-wicket hauls, and his 45 wickets have come at 20.44. At Chattogram in 2019, he took 11 wickets to beat the clock to defeat Bangladesh with minutes to spare. Against Zimbabwe in Abu Dhabi in 2021, he wheeled away for 99.2 overs (a 21st-century Test record) for 11 more wickets<\/a>.<\/p>\n Rashid is not the first cricketer to cut down on Test cricket because of the risks involved with the workload, but the other reason is just as poignant: despite being a legend of the shorter formats and a proven success in a short Test career, the system has deprived him of all targets and ambitions in the longest format.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2018Real cricket\u2019? <\/p>\n The overused cliche makes routine appearances towards the climax of hard-fought Test matches. An impressive phrase, it has played its part in establishing Test matches as cricket\u2019s \u201cprestige format\u201d.<\/p>\n Whatever qualities Test cricket might have, inclusivity is not among them<\/a> \u2013 and that is without getting into the way women\u2019s Tests have been reduced to mere tokens. The right to play men\u2019s Tests, presumably the pinnacle of the sport, needs to be earned. Of the 12 boards with that status, the first 10 were invited or voted into Test cricket, and Afghanistan should have been stripped of their Full Membership for the lack of women\u2019s cricket in the country.<\/p>\n That leaves only Ireland, the only team to have actually qualified for their Test status by clearing one ICC-laid step after another. In their eight-year stint at this level after going through the grind of qualification, Ireland have played 12 Tests and are not part of the World Test Championship.<\/p>\n Zimbabwe, the third of the non-WTC \u201cSmall Three\u201d, have not fared much better. They played 10 Tests in 2025 \u2013 but only 12 across the six years before that. <\/p>\n Of course, there have been reports<\/a> of these teams being part of the 2027-2029 WTC cycle. However, there have been parallel reports<\/a> of them playing one-off Tests in the cycle. If that happens, Tests involving the Small Three will become token games like women\u2019s Tests.<\/p>\n It is not that the picture looks rosy for the Test teams between the Big and Small Threes<\/a> (we can call them the Middle Six). They might have shared two of the three WTC titles, but the last series of four or more Tests involving two teams other than the Big Three dates back to 2005. The Big Three continue to play each other for five-match Test series, but for other games, they do little more than the bare minimum the WTC expects of them.<\/p>\n Some numbers will make this clear.<\/a> Since the start of the first WTC, Australia have played 35 Tests inside the Big-Three club \u2013 but only 30 other Tests. For India, the numbers read 34 and 32. While England\u2019s split (39 and 48) may not be as skewed, in an ideal world the two groups should have a ratio close to 2:9.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Thus, not only is Test cricket a non-inclusive Old Boys\u2019 Club but even within that club, the structure is also absurdly top-heavy. It is not unusual for cricketers to choose T20 over Test cricket (everyone is likely to choose the option that pays more), but that count is dominated by the world beyond the Big Three. The top Test cricketers from the Big Three seldom give up careers to pursue T20.<\/p>\n The list is long and diverse, and does include some excellent Test cricketers. Chris Gayle<\/a> is one of four men to hit two Test triple hundreds; while Trent Boult<\/a> is the fourth-highest Test wicket-taker among left-arm fast bowlers. The Test careers of Quinton de Kock<\/a>, Lasith Malinga<\/a>, or Dwayne Bravo<\/a> never lived up to their immense skills. All were from the Middle Six. Had they been from the Small Three, they would probably have seen the game like Rashid and quit long ago. How long before the gap between the Big Three and the rest becomes insurmountable?<\/p>\n Test cricket is the \u201cultimate test between the bat and the ball\u201d, the pundits and cricketers will tell you. The \u201cbest format\u201d of cricket, unfortunately, has been slowly pushing potential greats away from it by being too lopsided to be deemed fair.<\/p>\n Test cricket is losing its greatest asset \u2013 the cricketers \u2013 not because T20 is intrusive but because it is more inclusive than cricket\u2019s \u201cpurest\u201d format. <\/p>\n Follow Wisden for all cricket updates, including live scores<\/a>, match stats, quizzes<\/a> and more. Stay up to date with the latest cricket news<\/a>, player updates, team standings,<\/a> match highlights, video analysis<\/a> and live match odds<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this month, Afghanistan superstar Rashid Khan said there was “no target in Test cricket.” His priorities illustrate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-542873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}