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Endurance test for Lord's fans

Oliver Brett | 18:33 UK time, Sunday, 13 July 2008

Sir Allen Stanford, the man who if they win a Twenty20 match in November, is no fan of Test cricket.

And if he had been at Lord's on Sunday, it is fair to assume he would not have suddenly been converted like Saint Paul on the Road to Damascus.

In the best weather of the match, South Africa's openers remorselessly drove Michael Vaughan and his bowlers to distraction with courageous, studied essays in self-denial.

Knowing there was no prospect of their team winning the match, Graeme Smith and Neil McKenzie had little incentive to entertain the crowd.

Their job was to survive, not to show the smattering of South African supporters around the ground that they too could dominate the bowlers in the way Kevin Pietersen and Ian Bell had done for England.

Monty Panesar's frustrations mirrored those of England fans

Thus the fourth day of a Test up until now dominated by England proved .

Had the first three days been too good to be true? Well, yes. Only an Australian side with Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne in it could dominate South Africa to that extent for the entire duration of a match.

But it really did take an inordinate amount of time for a wicket to fall, and I wonder how long anyone will be able to remember a single shot played by Smith, McKenzie or Hashim Amla by the time the .

So, knowing that some people find the high price of tickets for a Lord's Test a little hard to stomach, I took the views of some paying punters shortly after the tea interval. I also asked them to compare Test cricket with Twenty20 cricket.

John Lofthouse, from Watford, a regular at Lord's and Oval Tests, said: "I am not a great fan of one-day cricket or Twenty20 cricket. I prefer traditional Test cricket. Even if it's not been a very successful day for England this is still, for me, real cricket.

"I've seen days when 20 wickets have fallen and this is very different from that. It's a flat track as well, and we could do with someone who could bowl 90mph, like , or a track with a bit more pace and bounce in it.

"But even if it ends in a draw, Test cricket gives you more drama than anything you get in a day or in two and a half hours.

"I've watched Twenty20 on the television but it just doesn't do it for me, it's like the difference between 11-a-side football and five-a-side football."

"Today has not been thrilling to watch, but we would have done the same in the South Africans' shoes."

Matt Walker from south-west London was slightly less positive, but even he was not left craving more instant satisfaction.

"Ordinarily I would have said Test match cricket is better, but today has been dreadful and very boring," he said.

"It's not been good and I might ask for my money back. Having said that, today has been an exceptionally bad day and ordinarily I would still pick Test matches over Twenty20 cricket."

The most challenging day of Test cricket I ever saw was probably the Saturday of the . New Zealand openers Trevor Franklin and John Wright batted all day, reaching 156-0 against the likes of Gladstone Small and Phil De Freitas.

But the beauty of travelling to watch any day of any Test match - anywhere in the world - is that you never know quite what to expect. Only the most unfortunate of souls would find themselves only experiencing days like Sunday and that one in 1990.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    Twenty20 cricket has just seemed to me for people who can't quite concnetrate on a whole day or 5 days. I must admit it's entertaining but tests have always seemed to make and break teams for me. It seems to take something special to be a good test player whilst twenty20 it seems to be just slog it and it favours batsmen. Test cricket involvs so much stratergy which Twenty20 doesn't have.

    However as Jonathan Agnew said if the finance from Twenty20 cricket is distributed properly I think the whole game will benefit.

  • Comment number 2.

    Yes, with the emergence of 20twenty matches test cricket may turn boring as long as the pitches are made flat and placid . to make it more sporting and result oriented pitches mus be prepared to last until 5 days equally good for seamers as well as to spinners. Then only the fittest team and its players can exhibit theirs skills in batting and bowling.

  • Comment number 3.

    Why is the blame for a boring Test match solely on South Africa? This is one-dimensional thinking.

    England effectively batted them out of the Test by amassing 600 runs in two days. Smith is just playing the hand he was dealt.

    England were the only team in a position to make things happen and Vaughan could have given the opposition a sniff (by declaring earlier on a flat pitch) in order to achieve a result. He didn't and now we have to live with the prospect of another draw at Lords.

  • Comment number 4.

    How about some sympathy for me here...followed the tests for years but never been able to go...member friend got me tickets, got there all excited and then had to sit through that!!

    Possibly the worst days play i have ever seen!

    Decided to go and just missed Smiths wicket!

    Cancelling my lottery as we speak.

  • Comment number 5.

    I'd rather watch five days of rain at a test match than five minutes of play at a Twenty20 match - it's just not cricket!

  • Comment number 6.

    We need some change to give something back to the bowlers. It is placid flat tracks and boring draws that will kill Test cricket and not Twenty/20. We need all or something of the following

    1) More sporting pitches.
    2) Perhaps balls with more pronounced seams to aid spin and swing
    3) limit the first innings to 120 overs per team. If a team is all out before using up all of the alloted overs, they can carry them over to the second innings.

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