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It doesn’t matter if its ‘Shuksball’ Test cricket is all the rage right now
The Star
|November 20, 2025
TEST cricket has been on its last legs since I can remember. A niche sport that exclusively keeps British aristocrats and its Commonwealth Asian diaspora entertained.
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This is, of course, a great general-isation. But one that holds plenty of truth with a format of the game that is already only played by 12 nations being virtually extinct in the once global power West Indies. And yet, I can’t help feeling that Test cricket is arguably in its rudest health.
It was never meant to be ‘the world’s game’ — that is the domain of football — that attracts the masses ... It's far too nuanced for that.
I have a penchant for scrolling through the archives on YouTube, and often come across Test matches played during the 1980s.
This was meant to be the golden decade of Test cricket when the aforementioned West Indies ruled the world with their ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ terrorising opposition batters before legends such as Sir Vivian Richards, Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes played with flair and charisma.
This story is from the November 20, 2025 edition of The Star.
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