Virat Kohli raises concerns over ECB’s newly proposed 100-ball format

Initially, the 100-ball concept proposed two eight-team tournaments, for the men’s and the women’s teams, consisting of 15 traditional six-ball overs, and a final 10-ball over, a 20-delivery shortfall on traditional T20 matches. Kohli did back the T20 leagues but said he wasn’t open to the concept of experimenting with a new format.

“I am already very tired. I wouldn’t say frustrated, but sometimes it can get very demanding of you when you have to play so much cricket regularly. I feel somewhere the commercial aspect is taking over the real quality of cricket and that hurts me,” he added.

“If you’re not going to give importance to first-class cricket, then people are going to lose motivation to play the longest format of the game. And with T20 format coming in I think there is a far greater responsibility on all the cricket boards across the world to treat first-class cricket really well,” Kohli said.

The World Test Championship begins in July 2019 with an Ashes series, India’s tour to the Caribbean and New Zealand touring Sri Lanka is ICC’s attempt to help revive Test cricket. The league phase of the inaugural edition is set to be played between July 2019 and March 2021, after which the top two teams will play the final.

“I think the Test championship is going to give a huge push to Test cricket. It makes every series more competitive, and there’s going to be ups and downs throughout the Championship, which I really look forward to,” Kohli concluded.