Testing times for five-day format

Test cricket might not be in the ER just yet, but it's getting a four-day treatment starting on Boxing Day in the outpatients room at St George's Park.

The International Cricket Council, much to the dismay of the MCC and at least two South African Test players - Dean Elgar and Faf du Plessis - declared the Port Elizabeth match against Zimbabwe from December 26 to December 29 a Test, even though it's scheduled for only four days. It sounded like the thin edge of an ICC proctologist's wedge.

The game will be a one-off for now, but the way the ICC sees it, three four-day Test matches can be squeezed into 18 days whereas now it takes 26 days with rest days in between. The ICC reckons few Test matches last more than 400 overs, and adding 10 overs a day, some of them under lights, makes a four-day game feasible.

CricViz, a bunch of clever clogs who have put out a free app, has uncovered evidence that backs up the ICC. The nerds found there has been a gradual decrease in the proportion of Test matches that went into a fifth day. More than three-quarters (75.2%) of Tests between 1975 and 1979 ended on the fifth day, rising to 77.1% in the 1980s, CricViz informed The Daily Telegraph. That figure dropped to just 58.3% this decade. After South Africa's series against England earlier this year, just 52% of Test matches in 2017 have gone to a fifth day.

That's still half of Test matches going to a fifth day, as one did earlier this week in Kolkata, where Sri Lanka clung on for a closely fought draw against India. Five days, as the Kolkata Test showed, can also be valuable when weather interferes as it did in India at the weekend. Without the fifth day, it would have been a bore.

The trouble with giving in to four-day Tests is that it could lead to the further diminution of the sport's finest format and its highest standard. Against all the evidence presented above, the fifth day has provided some marvellous finishes over 140 years, not least the two tied Tests of Australia-West Indies in 1961 and India-Australia in 1986.

If it had not been for a fifth day, spectators in Durban would not have been glued to their seats when England won on the last ball in 1948. Needing 128 off 28 eight-ball overs, England were 126 for eight after 27.5 overs. Alec Bedser got a single off the third-last ball, Cliff Gladwin missed the second-last one, then the pair scampered for the winning run on the final ball, which had come off Gladwin's thigh.

More recently, Vernon Philander and Dale Steyn inexplicably batted out the last 19 balls at the Wanderers when South Africa needed only 16 runs to beat India. The Proteas, needing 458 to win and set a world record, ended on 450 for seven. It still rankles.

So much for history. When the Ashes starts on Thursday at the Gabba in Brisbane, it won't just be the oldest rivals in cricket going head to head, it will also be England and Australia striking a blow for the five-day game and for the future of Test cricket.

The outcome of this Ashes series is one of the most uncertain in recent memory, which should make it memorable and help secure that fifth day. A lot is riding on this Ashes series, and it's not just the cricket fortunes of Australia and England.