Personally, I love five-day Tests but my role isn't to make decisions on what I love, says Kevin Roberts
Cricket Australia CEO Kevin Roberts has said that although he loves five-day Tests, it was not his role to make decisions on the issue. Although the idea of four-day Tests has received a lot of backlash of late from many former players, CA and BCCI recently had discussions over the issue.
The topic of four-day Tests has been trending a lot recently and whether it is a good idea or not has had differed opinions. However, CA CEO Kevin Roberts explained CA's stand on four-day Tests and felt that more clarity was needed to have a proper opinion on this issue. He also questioned the people who claimed that Test cricket was always played over five days.
"We're going to ask ourselves the right questions and the hard questions, develop an informed perspective. Interestingly, there's been like 130-day three-day Tests, 120-odd four-day Tests and there've been 100 Timeless Tests. So Tests haven't always been five days," Roberts told TOI.
With so many matches finishing under four days, Roberts felt that four-day Tests was a great idea but he also made it clear that it wasn't Cricket Australia's final decision.
"Personally, I love five-day Tests. But my role isn't to make decisions on what I love," he added.
Roberts felt that more crowd needed to come in to watch Test matches. Pink-ball Tests were introduced with the view to rope-in more people towards Test cricket. But Roberts felt that there were other ways too of increasing crowd engagement other than reducing the span from five to four days.
"I don't think it's a binary discussion of four or five days. There needs to be a balance of head and heart. If it was purely based on the numbers, it doesn't pay respect to the game's history. The concept does raise interesting possibilities like starting Tests on a Thursday, to give fans the maximum opportunity to watch on a Saturday and Sunday," Roberts asserted.