Test Cricket is Dying, Yuvraj Singh Shares Views on Downfall of Longest Format
New Delhi: T20 cricket is without any doubt the most entertaining and popular format of the game and with the advent of franchise leagues all around the world, the shortest format of the game has reached new heights. Former India international Yuvraj Singh opens up on the downfall of the game’s longest format- Test Cricket. He gives reasons why fans and cricketers have lost interest on the most important format.
“Test cricket is dying. People want to watch T20 cricket; people want to play T20 cricket,” Yuvraj said on Sports 18’s Home of Heroes. “Why would someone play five-day cricket and get five lakh rupees and today play T20 cricket and get 50 lakh? Players who have not made it to international cricket are getting 7-10 crores,” he said on Sports 18’s Home of Heroes.
“You watch a T20 game and then watch a 50-over game – it looks like a Test match now. After 20 overs, they are like, ‘There are 30 overs to bat!’. So, definitely T20 is taking over everything”, he told.
“When we won the World Cup (2011), we all had a set position to bat. I felt 2019 World Cup; they didn’t plan it well. They got Vijay Shankar to bat at #4 with just 5-7 ODIs, then they replaced him with Rishabh Pant, who had played 4 ODIs. When we played the 2003 World Cup, Mohd. Kaif, (Dinesh) Mongia and I had already played 50-odd ODIs,” he added.
Yuvraj Singh has 402 international caps to his name, scoring 11, 778 runs and picking up as many as 150 wickets.