by Since the launch of the Indian Premier League in 2008, it has been possible to imagine a dystopian future for Test cricket: a game effectively limited to failed T20 cricketers. When South Africa take on New Zealand for next month’s Test series, you’ll get a glimpse of that future.
Before the South African selectors chose their squad, they had to discount 77 players. These men, the most popular T20 players in the country, will all be playing in the SA20, the country’s T20 league, instead. So, while South Africa are trying to defend their impressive unbeaten record against New Zealand in a Test series, Kagiso Rabada and Aiden Markram will be 7,000 miles away, turning out for MI Cape Town and Sunrisers Eastern Cape.
It is a myth that the primacy of Test cricket has never been challenged. Ever since Learie Constantine missed the West Indies games because Nelson, his Lancashire League club, would not release him in 1933, the history of Test cricket has often been an odd juxtaposition with domestic leagues. In 1977-79, the whole sport collapsed, with a score of prominent players signing up for World Series Cricket, Kerry Packer’s breakout series, leaving behind to play the official Tests.
And so the South African dynamic is not as new as it seems. But what is new is that these absences are the result of a board cannibalizing its own Test team: Cricket South Africa has a mandate for players to be involved in the SA20. It’s like the Football Association of Ireland scheduling England internationals to clash with the Premier League – and then declaring anyone with a Premier League contract ineligible.
The result is that South Africa’s Test cricket continues to regress alarmingly. Since re-admission in 1992, South Africa’s win-loss record is second only to Australia. From 2006-15, the side went nine years without losing a single series away from home, rising to world No. Graeme Smith destroyed England’s Test captaincy with the ruthlessness reserved by the 1922 Committee for Conservative prime ministers. But, as SA20 commissioner, Smith now runs a tournament that has seen South Africa field a depleted Test team.
Cricket South Africa lost £13 million from 2021-23
The weakness of the rand and the lack of sponsors limit what South Africa can generate from hosting international cricket. In fact, most international cricket only stretches South African Cricket: the board loses money against all but the big three. From 2021-23, Cricket in South Africa lost £13 million.
Such financial strife is increasingly making Test cricket an asset that South Africa cannot afford. Between 2023 and 2026, the Proteas will play a two-match Test series exclusively.
The red ball game can be similarly overlooked at domestic level. Since 2019, the number of first-class matches for each side in South Africa’s premier division has dropped from 10 to seven. “They need to play more first-class cricket,” says Russell Domingo, the former South Africa coach who now coaches the Lions in the domestic game. “It comes down to financial matters. When you cut those costs, standards will go down.”
But, for all the exaggeration of South Africa’s depleted squad in New Zealand – a one-off event at the table – there is also a grim acceptance of the new reality. “SA20 has to happen because it is the heart of South African cricket,” said Shukri Conrad, South Africa’s Test coach. “If it doesn’t happen, we won’t have Test cricket anyway.” Such words represent the new truth in South African cricket; everything else now fits around SA20, the only non-negotiable piece of the country’s calendar.
But if some of South Africa’s issues are very local, they are a microcosm of the global crisis ahead of the Test match. Not since 2019 have two countries from outside the ‘big three’ played a three-match Test series against each other.
The state of Test cricket, therefore, requires global solutions. Borrowing from football’s approach, the windows of the international game would prevent cricketers from choosing between Test Series and T20.
Perhaps the biggest need is to reward Test players better. In franchise cricket, players are paid what the market deems worth: £925,000 per IPL season, in his case. But Rabada – who has 291 Test wickets at 22.05 apiece, placing him among the best fast bowlers of all time – is believed to earn around £250,000 a year (six million rand) from Cricket in South Africa. Players who stand for Australia, England or India earn five times more from their national board. While this disparity remains, players from the middle class of the sport will continue to respond to market forces, destroying the Test game.
England and Australia receive millions more than South Africa
In the past few days, Mike Baird, the chairman of Cricket Australia, has at least acknowledged this truth, proposing to “increase Test match payments to make them more competitive”. If those words were to go through, it would mean restoring the Test Cricket Fund to subsidize games outside the big three, and guarantee a minimum wage for players in Tests.
But recent deeds are different. Last year, the ICC’s new revenue distribution formula gave India 38 percent of revenue; England and Australia will get millions more than countries like South Africa.
It is sad that South Africa remains a valuable source of talent; Many of South Africa’s best young cricketers still want to play Test cricket. Mumbai Indians signed 18-year-old Dewald Brevis, nicknamed ‘Baby AB’ because of his resemblance to De Villiers, two years ago; it looked like they needed a new era of South African stars who didn’t need the five-day game. He has scored two first-class scores in the past month, which indicates that he is keen to become a Test cricketer as well.
But, for players of Brevis’ generation, the lore and mystique of Test cricket is not enough if they are asked to earn more elsewhere to play.
Led by a menacing pace attack, South Africa still keep the players to be a great Test team. But in the age of cricket and flux, talent alone is not enough to progress in red ball cricket. It has never been so clear whether there is the will – at home and especially around the world – to help South Africa Test cricket.
