Being on tour of New Zealand, Sri Lanka is determined to fight against all the odds to find a place in World Test Championship final. They will need to defeat the home side 2-0 which will require a mammoth effort but Sri Lanka have done well in the first two days of first test.
Top teams like Australia (18 test matches) and India (17 test matches) have played more test matches than Sri Lanka (10 test matches) in 2021-23 World Test Championship cycle. The number of men’s Tests scheduled in the five-year Future Tours Programme from May 2022-April 2027:
England will play 57 test matches, Australia will play 51 test matches, India will play 45 test matches, New Zealand will play 41 test matches, Bangladesh will play 41 test matches, South Africa will play 36 test matches.. Pakistan, Sri Lanka and West Indies, three of them will play only 34 test matches in this cycle.
Reviving test cricket is a subject that is getting a lot of attention these days. But what is actually being done for the proper nourishment of test cricket. Certainly, it will require involvement of more teams playing more cricket but unfortunately, only those test series are being promoted that will have more watchers.
Angelo Mathews has been in the team for a long time, he has seen how Sri Lanka has lost its representative power in test cricket arena. Talking about World Test Championship, Mathews said, “ We know that it’s pretty straight forward. I mean we need to win in New Zealand and we need to play extremely good cricket. I mean, the boys have been brilliant over the last eight months or so, especially in this in this test championship, but unfortunate that We are not playing too many test matches in this year. I mean as few as five. It’s really disappointing.”
He clearly expressed his discontent for not having enough test matches for the newly emerging Sri Lankan team. Last time Sri Lanka played a three match test series was back in 2018-19 when England visited them at home.
“I mean we are coming off a long lay off. I mean the last last Test match was six months back and then everyone’s talking about Test cricket dying and and and stuff like that But we are not doing any good for Test cricket, playing only five test matches a year. So I think it’s really disappointing but hopefully we will get more matches this year,” Angelo Mathews said.