Former captain Nasser Hussain said England’s rapid victory over the West Indies in the first Test at Lord’s summed up the challenges, the game’s longest format is facing. England defeated West Indies by an innings and 114 runs in the first hour of day three, taking a 1-0 lead in the three-match series. While England had some red-ball preparation in the form of County Championship games, the West Indies only played one three-day red-ball game against a First-Class Counties XI in preparation.
Furthermore, the majority of the players in the West Indies squad have not played red-ball cricket since their thrilling eight-run victory over Australia in January. Those two days summed up for me where we are with Test cricket. You talk about all the batting they could have but they’re off in a white-ball sunset, you’ve got bowlers who haven’t bowled, you’ve got undercooked cricketers, and then you lose the toss and have the worst of conditions, and everyone goes ‘Test cricket is dying’, Hussain said on the Sky Sports Cricket podcast.
But if you prepare for a Test match like that, you’ll get exactly what England gets when they go away. It frustrates me because you’ve got to give Test matches the preparation that they deserve, which is a very easy thing to say but a very difficult thing to do in modern times, the former batter stated.
There are questions over whether the second Test between England and the West Indies at Trent Bridge will be more competitive. “The other story is ‘the West Indies are in terminal decline’ — England haven’t won in the Caribbean for two decades and (the West Indies) hold the Richard-Botham Trophy. England travels to India or Australia and doesn’t particularly do well, so it shouldn’t just be a West Indies story. All it does is add to the fact that Test-match cricket is in a difficult place, and it is sort of self-perpetuating.
If you don’t look after it, then sides turn up and put in a performance like that, and everyone goes, ‘Told you, Test-match cricket is dying’. Listening to you speaking to Jimmy Anderson after 188 Test matches on the podium, I would like to think we would try to look after Test-match cricket, Hussain further added.
Hussain went on to say that Anderson talked passionately about his love of Test cricket after retiring from international cricket at Lord’s and that he will now serve as the team’s fast-bowling mentor in red-ball cricket.
