Players unhappy with four-day Tests, ICC needs to provide more clarity, states FICA

According to the FICA, after a round of discussion of players worldwide and a global survey data, they have reached the conclusion that the idea of reducing a day from the traditional five-day Test format won’t be popular amongst cricketers. They have collectively given negative feedback regarding four-day Tests, a potentially major change in cricket’s most traditional format. The player-driven organisation will only have further discussions about the idea, that claims to ease a crammed international calendar and reduce player workload, with cricketers after the ICC clarifies on how they plan to utilise the calendar space freed up by scrapping the fifth day.

“From our discussions with players around the world, and our global survey data, it is clear that there is currently a lot of negative sentiment, within the global collective of players, towards such a significant change to the game’s most traditional format,” FICA said in a statement on Wednesday.

Four-day matches are new to cricket, as not only the domestic but also the international setup has seen it being implemented. It was first seen in 2017 when South Africa hosted Zimbabwe, and one more time when England played against Ireland last year. However, widespread implementation of the same has faced resistance from many former and current cricketers starting from Sachin Tendulkar to Ben Stokes. Meanwhile, the CSA and ECB cricket boards have spoken in for of four-day Tests.

“Given the obvious cricketing implications, if the ICC and/ or Boards do want to make a broader case for four-day Test cricket, we would need to clearly understand what both the economic and scheduling benefits would be, so we can discuss that with players and gauge genuine collective feedback,” FICA said.

“It is particularly important for us, and the players, to understand how any additional calendar space in the playing schedule would be used. Making a fundamental change simply in order to provide calendar space to fill with additional or meaningless cricket is clearly not something we can support. Cricket’s global structure desperately needs clarity, rather than further confusion.”

The richest and most powerful amongst boards, the BCCI are yet to speak up on this matter whilst Indian captain Virat Kohli has strongly expressed his disapproval of the plan.

“Until such a time as we and the players are provided with the full picture and compelling reasons for change, we remain supportive of five-day Test cricket, and would expect significant player resistance if a shift to that is imposed on players by the ICC and/or Boards,” FICA said.