Former Australia captain Steve Waugh has put his weight behind Test cricket but has suggested that T20 cricket brings a lot more stability.
“Look, Test Cricket to me is still the ultimate form of the game. And you ask the top players what they want to play, they’ll all say Test Match Cricket,” Waugh told TimesofIndia.com.
“But at the end of the day, financially, T20 cricket is really fantastic for players and their families. It ensures stability and it gives them a regular income and a good income, it’s a shorter form of the game,” he added.
One of the most successful captains in the world is hopeful that Test cricket will survive despite having a competition with the shorter formats of the game.
“The authorities have got to work that out. Right now, there’s a structure in place for Test Matches and the schedule.So I really hope that Test Match Cricket will survive and can survive. I’m sure it will because the players want to play,” he added.
The former right-handed batter added that the schedule becomes very tight with so many T20 leagues coming in.
“There’s work to be done. I mean, the schedule is always tricky. There’s (T20 leagues) so many competitions coming on board. You want it to be meaningful and successful. We want this to be a really good competition that people want to watch. It’s going to be competitive, but a fantastic standard. And it stands for itself. But at the same time, we still want to make sure that Test Cricket is the pinnacle of the sport.”
Waugh played a total of 168 Test matches where he notched up 10927 runs at an average of over 51. The Australian batter also had an illustrious career in ODIs as he played 325 matches and scored 7596 runs at an average of 32.90. In total, Waugh scored 24052 runs in 356 First-Class matches and 11764 runs in 436 List A games.
Not just as a batter, Waugh was also a handy bowler where he scalped 92 Test wickets and had 195 scalps in ODIs.
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