Leave Test cricket alone
Mike Coward, writing in the Weekend Australian , expresses his concerns over Cricket Australia's desire to hold day-night Test matches.
Brydon Coverdale
25-Feb-2013
Mike Coward, writing in the Weekend Australian, expresses his concerns over Cricket Australia's desire to hold day-night Test matches.
Over the past 30 years or so, there has been a widely held view in the cricket community that the condensed forms of the game can be tampered with if need be, but Test match cricket is utterly untouchable. It is an unspoken, unwritten creed. It is particularly unsettling that night Test cricket should occupy the minds of those at CA at the start of a potentially thrilling Border-Gavaskar series and a year after a lucrative Ashes campaign. And, as a consequence of the greatness of recent Australian teams, Test cricket is being played with greater enterprise throughout the world. Test cricket is sacred because it has stood apart from all its mutations and from all other sport for 130 years. This makes it unique. The moment it does not stand apart is the moment it will be despoiled and doomed.
In the Age, Chloe Saltau examines whethere there is a future for one-day internationals in a world that is falling in love with Twenty20, and Tim Lane says in the same paper that cricket is selling its soul.
But the weekend papers are not completely filled with off-field issues and the future of the game - Peter Lalor writes in the Weekend Australian about Shaun Tait's history of intimidating batsmen with his speed and bounce.
Brydon Coverdale is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. He tweets here