Move Tests back to traditional centres
Inclusiveness - as we are seeing in England with matches in Cardiff and Southampton - is a good thing but doesn't necessarily do a good job of selling the spectacle of Test cricket, writes Ian Herbert in the Independent .
Siddhartha Talya
25-Feb-2013
Inclusiveness - as we are seeing in England with matches in Cardiff and Southampton - is a good thing but doesn't necessarily do a good job of selling the spectacle of Test cricket, writes Ian Herbert in the Independent.
Cardiff, Chester-le-Street, Southampton – all fine places and there's something commendably inclusive about stadiums which place you so close to the action that you hear third man cursing the bowler's length. But intimacy is not the same as intensity. Dress up your stadium however you want – and the Emirates Durham ICG certainly sounds less genteel than the Riverside, Chester-le-Street – but it doesn't give it the aura that sends statisticians rooting for the record sixth-wicket stand on that turf or makes it an opener's dream to see his name on the honour board/
Siddhartha Talya is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo