Oram's comments troubling for Test cricket

Jacob Oram has always impressed me as a young man of maturity and integrity and nobody can doubt his honesty here. But this is one of the best players New Zealand has produced in the past 20 years and he's prepared to walk away from what my generation regard as the premium form of cricket, writes Peter Williams in the Herald on Sunday.

That's after a 31-Test career of essentially unfulfilled potential, in order to be fit and available to indulge in a series of meaningless slogfests for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Matches that last 40 overs are deemed more worthwhile than those lasting 400. Oram won't be the last high-quality international cricketer aged around 30 and troubled by injury who'll flag test matches just as he should be approaching his prime.