News that Ben Stokes will not appear in the second Test comes as the latest setback to Durham, a club struggling with fortune and finance.
With ticket sales for the game modest - the most recent ECB sales report states that 25,373 have been pre-sold for the first four days, around 45% of those available - the club dearly needed Stokes, something of a local hero, to attract last-minute buyers. If they had any luck at all, it would be bad.
The Daily Mail published an article today that adds more fuel to the fire speculating that the ECB is considering the possibility of shortening the number of Tests England play each season from seven to five or six.
This would be a huge disappointment if this were to happen. Six home Tests a year equates to two three-Test match series or alternatively, just one five Test match series. This, combined with the news that the ICC want to schedule the World T20 every two years, does not bode well for the future of Test cricket.
It is an interesting idea and one that may well need to be implemented if the sheer number of T20 matches continue to increase each year.
Would players be forced to sign an international contract that would prohibit them from playing domestic T20 tournaments? Would fringe Test players that make a great living playing T20 tournaments all over the world be willing to sign up for that?
Sadly, everything seems to be pointing towards more limited overs cricket and less Test matches.
Yeah, I just don't see any way the players turn down lucrative T20 contracts. They can make millions for one-month of work and can play in three or four tournaments a year. We are starting to see more and more players choose domestic T20 over playing international matches, and players retiring early with an eye on still playing T20 tournaments all over the world.
