ICC chairman Greg Barclay, who is currently in England, has made it very clear that the countries apart from the Big 3 won’t be able to play as much test cricket in the future as they want to play, or as they are currently playing because the space in the cricketing calendar is getting squeezed.
Explaining his point further while talking to BBC, the ICC chairman said that the calendar is now occupied by a lot of franchise tournaments that involve the cricketing superstars from various countries, and on top of that, there is now going to be an ICC world tournament every year as well which will take its own space.
There is just not enough room in the calendar for the smaller countries to play as many test matches as they want. The Big 3, that is India, Eng,land, and Australia, still have the resources to continue playing the same volume of test cricket as they are playing right now, but on a whole, the future of the game is largely based on white-ball cricket now.
Broadcasters are more interested in investing in white-ball cricket: ICC chairman
According to Greg Barclay, the reason why white ball cricket is important and particularly important for the smaller countries is because the broadcasters are interested in white ball cricket and that’s where they are willing to invest and put their money in.
Barclay also talked about women’s test cricket and was very clear in his thoughts that women’s first-class system around the world is not structurally developed enough for women’s test cricket to become a part of the landscape.
When asked about the length of the IPL and a possible expansion of it upto 3 months, Barclay said that ICC can’t do anything about it because it’s a domestic tournament of BCCI and they can decide whatever length they want to stretch it.
