{"id":64677,"date":"2025-08-13T19:07:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T19:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/64677\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T19:07:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T19:07:09","slug":"forcing-tests-could-bankrupt-cricket-countries-australia-chief-cricket-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/64677\/","title":{"rendered":"Forcing Tests could \u2018bankrupt\u2019 cricket countries: Australia chief | Cricket News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article__subhead\">With 100 days until the first Ashes game of England\u2019s tour, Australia CEO says Test cricket needs quality, not quantity.<\/p>\n<p>Australia cricket chief Todd Greenberg says a slimmer Test calendar could benefit smaller nations because the five-day game was better \u201cwhere it means something\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Marking 100 days until the home Ashes series against England begins in Perth, Cricket Australia CEO Greenberg suggested that quality, not quantity, was important in keeping the red-ball game viable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re trying to send countries bankrupt if we force them to try to play Test cricket,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need to make sure we invest in the right spaces to play Test cricket where it means something.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s why the Ashes will be as enormous and as profitable as it is \u2013 because it means something.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>England have just completed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/sports\/2025\/8\/4\/india-tie-england-series-in-one-of-greatest-test-finales\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a thrilling 2-2 home drawn series against India<\/a> in front of sold-out crowds.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, New Zealand and Australia romped to easy overseas Test series wins against uncompetitive West Indies and Zimbabwe teams respectively, leaving question marks over the quality of Test cricket in those countries.<\/p>\n<p>One idea is to create two or more divisions of Test cricket to keep it competitive, but Greenberg said he did not have a strong opinion on the ideal number of Test-playing nations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet\u2019s consider what the future might look like,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>But the five-day game remained in rude health in Australia, Greenberg said, where interest in the Ashes had been \u201coff the charts\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis will be the biggest sports event in Australia this year,\u201d said Greenberg.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe interest is quite extraordinary with ticket allocations for 11 of the 20 days on sale already exhausted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Australia were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/sports\/2023\/6\/11\/australia-beat-india-to-win-cricket-world-test-championship\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">defeated by South Africa<\/a> in the final of the 2025 World Test Championship at Lord\u2019s Cricket Ground in London in June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With 100 days until the first Ashes game of England\u2019s tour, Australia CEO says Test cricket needs quality,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1296,428,1721,50,217,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-64677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-asia-pacific","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-news","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64677","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=64677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}