Dave Richardson contradicts Shashank Manohar’s statement by saying it’s wrong to say Test cricket is dying

ICC Chairman Manohar had said during his Bangladesh visit that Test cricket is dying and the global body would want to see if the Test championship can generate any interest. However, the chief executive has now come out with a survey report conducted by the ICC saying that there is nothing like that in international cricket as the longest format of the game has a strong base of around 700 million which is about 68% of all the cricket fans around the world. 

"What he was meaning to say is Test cricket was calling out for more context. Yes, there are some iconic contests that take place from time to time, but really, unless you are a part of or a fan of the participating teams that particular series had no real interest (to fans globally),” Richardson told ESPNcricinfo.

"And with the introduction of the World Test Championship, that adds interest and helps to promote the Test game worldwide no matter who is playing. That is what he was saying: Test cricket needed just that added boost, it needed to be promoted and the World Test Championship hopefully is the answer to that."

ICC had conducted a market-research in 2018 which proved that the shortest format is clearly making the sport popular all over the globe. It also revealed that cricket has a fanbase of more than a billion people in all the three formats of the game. 

"In many countries Test cricket is still very closely followed. We have got more than a billion fans that follow cricket - 68% of them are fans of all three formats of the game, which means that close to 700 million people are fans of Test cricket. So it is wrong to say that Test cricket is dying. It is harder for people to go to five days of a Test match, spend every day sitting there for six hours,” the chief executive explained.

"Maybe the way that people are following Test cricket is different to what it was say 10, 20 years ago. But I don't think it is dying. The Test Championship, though, will provide more context and more interest and just be an extra hat peg that we can hang our hats on."