Since the Indian Premier League was founded in 2008, it has been possible to imagine a dystopian future for Test cricket: a game limited to effectively underachieving T20 cricketers. A glimpse of this future will come when South Africa arrive in New Zealand for next month’s Test series.
South Africa’s selectors had to discount 77 players before selecting their squad. All of these men, the country’s most sought-after T20 players, will instead play in the country’s T20 league, SA20. Kagiso Rabada and Aiden Markram will be 7,000 miles away with MI Cape Town and the Sunrisers heading to the Eastern Cape as South Africa look to maintain their remarkable unbeaten record against New Zealand in the Test series.
It is a myth that the primacy of Test cricket has never been challenged before. Ever since the great Learie Constantine missed matches against the West Indies because Lancashire League club Nelson failed to release him in 1933, the history of Test cricket has often been an odd juxtaposition with domestic leagues. In 1977-79, the entire sport fell apart as scores of leading players signed up for World Series Cricket, Kerry Packer’s breakaway league, leaving only one left behind to play official Tests.
So the dynamics facing South Africa are not as new as they seem. But what is new is that these absences are the result of the board cannibalising its own Test team: Cricket South Africa has made it mandatory for players to feature in the SA20. This would be akin to the Football Association scheduling England’s international matches to coincide with the Premier League and then declaring anyone with a Premier League contract to be ineligible.
As a result, the alarming decline in South African Test cricket continues. Since readmission in 1992, South Africa’s win-loss record has been second only to Australia. Between 2006-15, the team rose to the world number 1 without losing a single away series for nine years; Graeme Smith dethroned England Test captains with the same ruthlessness that the 1922 Committee reserved for Conservative prime ministers. But Smith, as SA20 commissioner, is currently overseeing a competition that has seen South Africa field a depleted Test team.
Cricket South Africa loses £13m from 2021-23
The weakness of the rand and the scarcity of sponsors are hindering what South Africa could produce by hosting international cricket. In fact, most international cricket only furthers South African Cricket: the board loses money against all but the big three rivals. Between 2021-23, Cricket South Africa lost £13 million.
Such financial squabbles increasingly make Test cricket a luxury that South Africa cannot afford. Between 2023 and 2026, the Proteas will only play two-match Test series.
A similar neglect of the red-ball game is evident at the local level. Since 2019, the number of first-class matches for both teams in South Africa’s top division has fallen from 10 to seven. “They need to play more first-class cricket,” says former South Africa coach Russell Domingo, who now coaches the Lions in home matches. “It comes down to finances. When you cut these costs, there will be a drop in standards.”
But for all the exasperation with South Africa’s depleted squad in New Zealand – which the board claims will be a one-off event – there is also a harsh recognition of the new reality. “SA20 needs to happen because it is the lifeblood of South African cricket,” South Africa Test coach Shukri Conrad said. “If that doesn’t happen, we won’t have Test cricket anyway.” Such words reflect the new reality in South African cricket; everything else fits into SA20, which is now the only undisputed part of the country’s calendar.
But while some of South Africa’s problems are quite local, they are a microcosm of the global crisis facing the Test game. No two countries from outside the ‘big three’ have played a three-match Test series against each other since 2019.
So testing the state of cricket requires global solutions. Citing football’s approach, windows to international play will prevent cricketers from having to choose between Tests and T20 leagues.
Perhaps the biggest need is to reward Test players better. In franchise cricket, Rabada and his mates are paid what the market thinks it’s worth: in his case, £925,000 per IPL season. However, Rabada, who has 291 Test wickets at 22.05 apiece, placing him among the best fast bowlers of all time, is believed to earn a total income of around £250,000 (six million rand) a year from South African Cricket. Players of his stature for Australia, England or India earn five times more than their national boards. As this inconsistency continues, players from the sport’s middle class will continue to respond to market forces, hollowing out the Test game.
UK and Australia get millions more than South Africa
In recent days, Cricket Australia’s chief executive, Mike Baird, has at least acknowledged this fact and advocated “increasing Test match payouts to make them more competitive”. Making such promises work would require re-establishing the Test Cricket Fund to fund matches outside the big three and guaranteeing a minimum wage for players in Tests.
But recent actions bode less well. Last year, the ICC’s new revenue distribution formula gave 38 percent of revenue to India; Britain and Australia will also receive millions more than countries like South Africa.
The sad thing is that South Africa remains a fertile source of talent; Many of the best young cricketers in South Africa still aspire to play Test cricket. Dewald Brevis, nicknamed ‘Baby AB’ due to his resemblance to De Villiers, was signed by Mumbai Indians as an 18-year-old two years ago; It seemed to signal a new era of South African stars who did not need five-day matches. He scored two first-class centuries last month, which shows his desire to become a Test cricketer.
But for players of Brevis’s generation, the history and mystique of Test cricket will not be enough if they are asked to give up greater earnings to play elsewhere.
Led by a menacing pace attack, South Africa’s players remain a great Test team. But in cricket’s age of fragmentation and change, talent alone is not enough to succeed in red-ball cricket. It has never been clearer that there is a desire to help South African Test cricket at home and especially around the world.