Since the launch of the Indian Premier League in 2008, it has been possible to imagine a dystopian future for Test cricket: a game effectively limited to failed T20 cricketers. When South Africa arrive in New Zealand for next month’s Test series, a glimpse of that future will arrive.
Before the South African selectors chose their squad, they had to leave out 77 players. These men, the country’s most in-demand T20 players, will instead all play in the SA20, the country’s T20 league. So while South Africa look to protect their remarkable unbeaten record against New Zealand in the Test series, Kagiso Rabada and Aiden Markram will be 7,000 miles away, playing for MI Cape Town and Sunrisers Eastern Cape.
It is a myth that the primacy of Test cricket has never been questioned before. From the great Learie Constantine missing matches in the West Indies because Nelson, his Lancashire League club, would not release him in 1933, the history of Test cricket has often been an uneasy coexistence with domestic competitions. In 1977-79 the entire sport fell apart, with dozens of leading players signing up for World Series Cricket, Kerry Packer’s breakout competition, leaving a rump behind to play official Tests.
And 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 a board cannibalizing its own Test team: Cricket South Africa has mandated that players feature in the SA20. It’s akin to the Football Association scheduling England international matches to clash with the Premier League – and then declaring that anyone with a Premier League contract is ineligible.
The result is that South African Test cricket continues its alarming budget cuts. Since the takeover in 1992, South Africa’s win-loss record is second only to Australia. From 2006 to 2015, the team went nine years without losing a single away match, rising to number 1 in the world; Graeme Smith dethroned England’s Test captains with the ruthlessness the 1922 Committee reserves for Conservative prime ministers. But as SA20 commissioner, Smith is now presiding over a competition that has resulted in South Africa fielding a depleted Test team.
Cricket South Africa lost £13 million between 2021 and 2023
The weakness of the rand and a shortage of sponsors are hampering what South Africa can generate from hosting international cricket. In fact, most international cricket only expands Cricket South Africa: the board loses money against all opponents except the big three. From 2021 to 23, Cricket South Africa lost £13 million.
Such financial conflicts are increasingly making Test cricket a luxury that South Africa cannot afford. Between 2023 and 2026, the Proteas will only play two-match Test series.
A similar disdain for the red-ball game can be seen at the national level. Since 2019, the number of first-class matches for each side in South Africa’s top division has fallen from 10 to seven. “They need to play more first-class cricket,” said Russell Domingo, the former South Africa coach who now coaches the Lions in the domestic game. “It comes down to finances. If you reduce those costs, standards will drop.”
But for all the annoyance over South Africa’s depleted squad in New Zealand – an event the board believes will be a one-off – there is also a grim acceptance of the new reality. “SA20 has to happen because it is the lifeblood of South African cricket,” said South Africa Test coach Shukri Conrad. “If it doesn’t happen, we won’t have Test cricket anyway.” Such words reflect the new truth in South African cricket; everything else now fits around SA20, the only non-negotiable stretch of the country’s calendar.
But while some of South Africa’s problems are deeply local, they are a microcosm of the global crisis facing the Test game. Since 2019, two countries outside the ‘big three’ have not played a three-match Test series against each other.
Thus, testing the plight of cricket requires global solutions. Building on football’s approach, the windows for the international game would prevent cricketers from choosing between Tests and T20 competitions.
Perhaps the biggest need is to reward Test players better. In franchise cricket, Rabada and co are paid what the market thinks they are worth: £925,000 per IPL season, in his case. Yet Rabada – who has 291 Test wickets at 10.05 each, putting him among the best fast bowlers of all time – is believed to earn a total of around £250,000 a year (six million rand) from Cricket South Africa. Players at his level for Australia, England or India earn five times more from their national boards. As long as this discrepancy persists, the sport’s middle-class players will continue to respond to market forces, eroding the Test game.
England and Australia receive millions more than South Africa
In recent days, Cricket Australia chairman Mike Baird has at least recognized this truth and advocated “increasing payments for Test matches to make them more competitive”. Making good on such words would mean restoring the Test Cricket Fund to subsidize 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 sharing formula gave 38 percent of revenue to India; England 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 long to play Test cricket. Dewald Brevis, known as ‘Baby AB’ for his resemblance to De Villiers, was signed by Mumbai Indians two years ago at the age of 18; it seemed to herald a new era of South African stars who didn’t need the five-day competition. He has scored two first-class centuries in the last month, indicating that he also wants to become a Test cricketer.
But for players of Brevis’ generation, the lore and mystique of Test cricket won’t be enough when they are asked to give up higher earnings elsewhere to play.
Led by a menacing pace attack, South Africa still retains the players as a great Test team. But in the age of cricket’s fragmentation and change, talent alone is not enough to thrive in red ball cricket. Whether the will exists – at home and especially globally – to help South African Test cricket has never been clearer.