The Pleasures of Test Match Cricket
12/28/2025
BLUF : I think test match Cricket is the best sport there is.
Over the almost sixty years (gulp!) of my existence on this planet, I have watched or listened to most sports: Cricket, Soccer, Badminton, Tennis, Kabaddi, Field Hockey, and Volleyball while growing up in India, and after coming to the US, Football, Basketball, Ice Hockey, Baseball, Golf, Olympic sports, Bowling, Sumo wrestling, and so on. I have watched at least a little bit of most sports and in my view and for my taste Test Match Cricket is the best. BTW there is also One Day Cricket and Twenty-Twenty (T20) Cricket which last about one day and one evening respectively but they don’t come close to Test Match Cricket, to be called TMC from here onwards.
So what is TMC, for those of you who are hearing about it for the first time? Even more fundamentally, what is Cricket? Well, to put it in a nutshell Cricket is a game similar to Baseball. It is played between two “wickets” instead of bases, and runs are scored similar to how they are in Baseball. The main differences are that there are no foul balls, the batsman doesn’t get out just because he didn’t hit the ball, and there are always two batsmen on the field at either wicket. In TMC there are two innings for each team and the game could go on for five days. Theoretically, just two batsmen could go on batting for all five days! In practice, though, teams try to get a result, and sometimes that can take the last ball of the last day.
NOTE: Nowadays there are also test matched played between teams of women, but since I watch mostly the men’s game I will stick to “batsman.”
Test matches are mostly played between teams representing countries that used to be part of the British Empire, namely England, Australia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, South Africa, West Indies (a group of Island countries from the Caribbean playing under one flag) and Zimbabwe. Recently Ireland has also entered the fray. Afghanistan might also join in the near future. To me at least, Cricket is probably one of the few good legacies from the British rule of India. Netherlands and USA also have Cricket teams now, although it is doubtful if they would ever play test matches.
Speaking of the USA, Cricket being the invention of the English has a long history in the US as well. According to Wikipedia, until the mid 1800’s Cricket was as popular if not more popular than Baseball. Baseball became more popular around the time of the civil war because it could be played by everybody, anywhere. Nevertheless until the first world war Cricket remained popular in the US, especially in and around Philadelphia. Recently there has been a revival due to the large Cricket loving immigrant population. In India now Cricket is the de facto national sport, and it is played by everyone. Ironically in England it has become more of a game for upper class whites although efforts are under way to change this.
I grew up in a one bedroom house, basically a long hallway divided up into a bedroom, living room and kitchen. I didn’t have access to TV at home before coming to the US. I remember it like it was yesterday, listening to the commentary of Alan McGillivray and Christopher Martin Jenkins on BBC radio for test matches being played in England. Of course we had test matches happening in India and other places as well, but it was thrilling to be able to listen to what was going on in a far away place using that itty bitty radio. One of my earliest memories from my childhood is playing Cricket with my friends, listening to the commentaries of Cricket matches on the radio, and reading about it in the newspaper. I must have been between 5 and 8 years old. In those days the only matches were the test matches between countries and the Ranji Trophy matches (played for 4 days) between different states of India.
Growing up in Kerala my heroes were the great Indian Cricketers of the day such as Sunil Gavaskar and Gundappa Viswanath. I can still name at least 9 main players of the Indian eleven of those days. I had a particular fondness for marginal characters, and hence for Karsan Ghavri, a player who was not among the elite Cricketers of that time. This extended to other areas as well. My favorite character from the Ramayana was Shatrugna, the brother of Rama who is not talked about much. Maybe I just liked to root for the underdogs.
I also admired the West Indian players of that time, such as Clive Lloyd and Vivian Richards. There was one Caribbean player in particular who became a big part of my life after we moved to Tamil Nadu because the neighborhood kids gave me his last name as my nickname. It was not meant as a compliment, but I grew to be proud of that name, partly because the West Indies team of that time was the most successful Cricket team in those days. Their bowling quartet of Roberts, Holding, Garner and Marshall was feared by batsmen of all countries.
In Kerala soccer remains the most popular game but I grew up playing and watching / listening to TMC mainly because that is what all my friends did. In Tamil Nadu soccer is not so popular and I started getting even more into Cricket. My interest continued until I got to tenth grade. After that I focussed so much on my studies that sports fell by the wayside. The heavy competition for college seats and my own motivation to do well led to that. This continued until I finished my M.Sc degree in India. Then after coming to the US I started watching basketball with others in my dorm at grad school. I got more and more into American sports, especially football, in the 90’s and 2000’s. Unfortunately our Washington team was in decline during that time, but that is another story.
It was in the early 2010’s that I started watching Cricket again, mainly TMC, and that is when I really started appreciating it. At first it was just a way to relive a childhood experience. During childhood it was just a game that everyone around me played and watched and talked about. But now I began to appreciate it for what it was.
I think it was during the Ashes Test series in Australia that I started watching. I don’t know why I started watching. Maybe it was because the Australians, especially Mitchell Johnson, were simply destroying the English batsmen physically and mentally, but more likely it was something else. Anyway it was a bit pathetic, so much so that I was rooting for the Englishmen to fight back. They were the underdogs now. But they never did recover and in fact, this past week in Melbourne was the first time they won a test match in Australia since 2011.
So what are the things that I enjoy about TMC? First of all it is just great company and conversation. In other sports the game is moving constantly, something is happening every moment, and the commentators have barely the time to catch their breath. They narrate the game and analyze it and that’s it. But in TMC commentary they have time to chat about the players, the fans, and themselves. It is like watching Cricket with a group of friends and chatting.
Some of the players I used to admire as a kid were in the commentary box at that time, like Michael Holding the great Caribbean bowler, David Gower the classy, aristocratic English batsman (he was in his twenties and just starting his effortlessly flamboyant career when I was a kid), and Sunil Gavaskar the Indian batsman who was a pioneer that inspired young Indians of my generation. All these guys are now very old and retired from commentary. Among the Australian commentators I loved Shane Warne. Who doesn’t? Shane Warne was not only a legendary bowler in his days, but also a legend off the field as well. For those of you who have never heard of him, the actress Elizabeth Hurley was his girlfriend for a while, although that was not why he was legendary. I missed watching him live because he was active during the period I was not watching Cricket. But I have seen some of the old videos of his bowling and it can be mesmerizing. Most of all I loved his commentary. His charisma came from his creative spirit and also his passion for life which manifested as a passion for Cricket. Even if the game was utterly boring, which it can be sometimes if the teams are not evenly matched or the match is heading to a draw, one could watch it just to hear his commentary. Tragically, Australia’s national hero died too young. In the match that just concluded in Melbourne, his home ground, “The King” was celebrated by everyone.
The other nice thing about TMC is that it doesn’t drain you mentally, except during the climactic moments when the match is heading to a conclusion. Even a game that ends in a draw can have a nail biting finish if one team is desperately trying to avoid defeat after giving their everything for a few days. But most of the time it is a slow burner. If watching a competitive soccer or football game is like watching an action movie that ends in an hour and a half after a lot of noise and dust, TMC is the epic four hour movie with multiple story lines and character development and subtleties and complex dialog. Now I have heard my American friends assert that baseball is also a very complex game. I don’t know enough to judge that statement but however complex, it is still far too short compared to TMC and hence less involved. Watching TMC when it is good is really more like reading at your leisure a 400 page novel whose every page is filled with intrigue and engrossing details. (Not that I read novels these days).
Now you might be asking, where do you get the time to watch a five day game? This is where the slow burner aspect of Cricket comes in handy. I can watch the game and still be doing something that doesn’t require a lot of concentration. I don’t try to work on my mathematics research or grade papers while watching TMC although I could still be thinking about math while watching it. The great mathematician G. H. Hardy, famous for revealing the Indian genius Ramanujan to the world, was apparently a big Cricket fan. He would work on his research for about four hours and then head out to watch a Cricket game. But I could, for instance, be sorting through old mail. I could be cooking or eating. I could be writing this post about TMC. In fact I was planning to do exactly that except that the Melbourne test ended preposterously after just two days (only two days!). But more often, it is a time to relax, and often I go to sleep watching it. A lot of times, especially during the semester when classes are going on, I watch TMC on replay (thanks Willow!). So it may take me a week or two to finish watching one test match, but that is okay. You don’t often try to read a 400 page novel in one sitting.
The best thing about TMC is the human element. We read epics like the Odyssey to be inspired by the character and life journeys of heroes who overcome great obstacles. We watch marathoners like Eliud Kipchoge to be inspired by someone breaking the limits of human potential. Cricket is a simulation in miniature of such journeys. Each of the eleven batsmen in each innings have to face a barrage of balls coming at them at over 90 mph, or the slower ones (called spin bowling) turning wickedly after hitting the ground. It requires extreme effort, concentration, and mental and physical stamina. Add to that the different characters of the batsmen and the various techniques and approaches they use, and each test match becomes a miniature movie of life itself.
These days in India Cricket is opening the doors to a better life for many young people. I do wish India were promoting other sports and also athletics as much as Cricket, but the reality is that among the people it is the most popular. The Indian economy is still struggling, and Cricket is one of the ways that young people can make a living. Given that reality, it is encouraging to hear about young people emerging from very humble backgrounds and breaking into a lucrative career as professional cricketers. There is the story of Yashaswi Jaiswal from Uttar Pradesh who was sent to live in Mumbai with his uncle when he was 10. He lived in a tent near the Cricket grounds, surviving by helping the food vendors sell snacks, playing Cricket from dawn to dusk. Now he is one of the stars of the Indian test team. There is also the story of Nitish Reddy whose father sacrificed everything so he could become a professional cricketer. It was heartwarming to watch his father burst into tears watching his son score a century in the Melbourne test match against Australia last year.
Watching all these Cricketers brings me back to another little boy growing up in Tamil Nadu with dreams of becoming a Cricketer. I still remember the day when, with great anxiety, this little boy put on his pads, picked up the bat and set out to face the bowling on the carpeted pitch on his High School Cricket ground. I think he did okay, defending some balls, missing some of them. But I also remember the bored look on his PE teacher’s face making clear he was not too impressed. Perhaps it was for the better that he didn’t make it to his High School team, or that he never played any form of competitive Cricket for the rest of his life. Perhaps it was better that he decided to choose mathematics as the path for his professional career, writing posts like these on his leisure time. But those memories keep alive his passion for Cricket. Who knows, maybe one of these days he would even get to put on pads on his legs and hit some cricket balls!