There’s a reason they call it a Test. No other format in cricket challenges the mental and physical faculties of its participants quite like it. The game undulates over days and the pitch is an evolving canvas, with every pointillist scuff and divot leaving its mark. The characters embark on dramatic arcs, triumphing and failing in pursuit of victory.
Barclay’s bleak forecast for the future resonated at a different frequency across the hierarchical pyramid. For as much as male cricketers will feel the pinch, it won’t compare to the vice-like squeeze on the women’s game. It’s not just in South Africa where a major disparity has calcified. Katherine Brunt, one of England’s most successful bowlers, announced her retirement from Test cricket last week. She made her international debut in August 2004, three years before her male counterpart, Stuart Broad. Brunt, who helped her country win three World Cups, signs off with 14 Tests to her name. Broad started his 155th against New Zealand on 23 June.
“We obviously would have liked a few more sessions,” says the team’s bowling coach, Dillon du Preez. “From a technical perspective, I think our biggest challenge as a bowling unit would be the control of the red ball, especially the Dukes [hand-stitched balls] in these conditions. We all know the red ball will be swinging more and control might be an issue.
“Look, that’s not a great memory,” she says. And it is perhaps why she struggles to recount too many details from that chastening experience. “It was the most difficult thing we’ve ever had to do. We had no warm-up game, we had no prior experience with a red ball, we’d never played on a pitch like that. It was slow and turned from the first ball and their spinners took us apart.
Test cricket is far from dead. Check England vs New Zealand series.
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