Dean Elgar’s side may be the world’s best but they’re losing the battle back home to preserve the longest form of cricket
I am not sure what he expected, maybe for the marching band who had been parading around the ground at lunch to come back and lay on another performance. He was one of the corporate guests. There are a lot of them at Lord’s. Tests there seem to have become dress-up events, hardly anyone goes in their everyday clothes.
South Africa are a world-beating team, top of the Test Championship, have one of the most exciting fast-bowling attacks to come here in years and they cannot even get someone to pay for the advertising space on their shirts. In England we are lucky enough to be still worrying about whether Test cricket has a future whereas in South Africa one prominent administrator put it in an off-the-record conversation this week: “The battle has already been lost.
Instead they have cleared out their domestic schedule to make room for their new T20 tournament. All six of the new franchises are owned by Indian Premier League teams, which is one reason why Cricket South Africa is not scheduling any international matches during the IPL either. So that is three and a half months of the year blocked off for T20 league cricket.
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