The slow death of Test cricket

In the blink of an eye, the Boxing Day Test was over. For the second time this summer, an Ashes Test concluded in barely two days, with England sealing a four-wicket win at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) on December 27, 2025. For many of us, this felt almost unreal.

The Boxing Day Test has long been one of cricket's great traditions. It is always played at the MCG, beginning on December 26, and features Australia against a visiting team, most often England. Over the decades, it has become far more than a sporting fixture. It is part of the rhythm of the Australian summer.

The Ashes themselves represent one of the oldest and most storied rivalries in world sport. There were times when these contests produced epic struggles that entered cricketing folklore. Don Bradman dominated attacks with a mastery rarely matched before or since. In response, England devised the infamous Bodyline tactics under the leadership of Douglas Jardine. Even without protective helmets, Bradman endured and prevailed. His name became immortal, while that of Jardine faded into history.

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Chill in the air and on the scorecards

Test aficionados will never forget the historic match between Australia and the West Indies, which ended in a tie, with both teams finishing on the same total. Played at Brisbane in 1960, it remains one of the rarest results in the game's long history. Frank Worrell captained the match for the West Indies and Richie Benaud for Australia, and it came to symbolise a profound turning point in cricketing history.

That moment carried a deeper resonance because, only a short time earlier, Frank Worrell had been excluded from the West Indies side altogether. During both the home series against Pakistan in 1957–58 and the subsequent tour of Pakistan, the team was captained by Gerry Alexander, a white Jamaican. Worrell's omission had little to do with form or merit and much to do with the racial hierarchies that still governed West Indian cricket. Leadership was reserved for those deemed socially and racially acceptable. When Worrell was finally appointed captain for the Australian tour, it marked not merely a sporting decision but a moral turning point. It signalled the beginning of the end of colonial deference and the emergence of a more confident Caribbean identity.

There were other great eras as well. The rise of the West Indies in the 1970s and 1980s transformed the game. Their fearsome pace attacks and flamboyant batting humbled Australia on home soil in a 5–0 whitewash. This period coincided with the upheaval of World Series Cricket, when Kerry Packer broke the establishment and sent teams, controversially, to apartheid-era South Africa. That episode reshaped the global game in lasting ways.

For much of its history, Test cricket was an exclusive club. Australia, England, the West Indies, India, Pakistan, New Zealand and South Africa formed its core, with South Africa later excluded and then readmitted. Over time, new nations such as Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh joined the ranks, with varying degrees of success.

And now we arrive at the present moment. What has become of Test cricket? Matches that were designed to last five days are finishing in two. A friend of mine bought tickets for the fourth and fifth days of the Boxing Day Test, only to find the match over before those days arrived. Once, drawn Tests after five days of attrition were common. Today, they are increasingly rare.

The rise of limited-overs cricket, and more recently the T20 format, has transformed the game. Batsmen attack from the outset. Run rates soar, but wickets fall just as quickly. The patience, rhythm, and long-form strategy that defined Test cricket are steadily eroding.

For those of us who grew up in what now feels like a golden age of Test cricket, who memorised statistics and followed every tour with devotion, this change brings a sense of quiet loss. It feels like the closing of a chapter.

Perhaps this is simply the nature of time. Games evolve, just as generations do. And perhaps the fading of the five-day Test mirrors something deeper, the gradual realisation that an era we once inhabited so fully is passing into memory.

Such is life.

Dr Mushfiqur Rahman is a retired telecommunication specialist based in Melbourne, Australia.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own. 

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