Sourav Ganguly’s BCCI won’t let lCC conduct four-day Tests, believes Shoaib Akhtar

Considering the entire concept of four-day Test to be deprecating for Asian teams, Akhtar believes that the implementation of the same would be stopped by the BCCI. Earlier, the ICC revealed its consideration of the idea of running four-day Tests between 2023-2031, the next FTP cycle, in order to grow the Test cricket format commercially. It will also help them incorporate shorter formats amidst the ICC Test Championship schedule.

Many cricketers, former and current, starting from Ricky Ponting to Virat Kohli have come out and said that they do not approve of this new format. And Shoaib Akhtar was the latest to join the parade of the people who condemn the concept. The Pakistani veteran pointed out that the start of four-day Tests would be detrimental for the Asian teams. Hence, he believes that Ganguly’s BCCI’s won’t let it happen.

"Everywhere there is this conspiracy, a theory against Asian teams these days. I feel this (reduction of Test to four days) is totally against Asian teams. I feel this idea is rubbish no one should be interested in it," Akhtar said in a video posted on his YouTube channel.

"ICC cannot implement this rule without the permission of BCCI. BCCI along with all the smart cricketers are standing against this idea, especially spinners from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh who dominate and thrive in a series will not let this happen," Akhtar added.

"Sourav Ganguly is a smart intelligent person. He will never want to see Test cricket getting damaged. He would want it to survive and see India excel in the format.”

Further on, the 44-year-old echoed Sachin Tendulkar’s opinion on the same and said that it would be majorly disadvantageous for the spinners of this era.

"Sachin is spot on in his criticism. What will the spinners do? Danesh Kaneria, Mushtaq Ahmed, Ravichandran Aswin, Harbhajan Singh, Anil Kumble have taken 400-500 wickets. What will happen to them?" Akhtar questioned.