Cricket’s best advertisement is South Africa’s captain
With the ODI matches against South Africa completed, and the Test matches to begin, multi day matches are back in Australia’s spotlight.
Still, test cricket continues to offer something tangible to sport and the community that supports it, something no shorter format sport truly replicates.
Mitchell Marsh plays a shot against South Africa in the recent ODIs. AP Photo/Themba Hadebe
Traditionalists defend the five-day game through history and ritual, yet that defence misses a more practical point. Test cricket carries intrinsic value not just for spectators, but for participants. It remains one of the rare elite sports where the pathway from backyard to international level is not closed off by genetics and body-type inherited at birth.
Several years ago, I wrote about the inverted in-game economics of test cricket compared with baseball. In baseball, outs are cheap and runs are scarce. In cricket, wickets are priceless and runs accumulate through patience.
Baseball operates under a strict use it or lose it ultimatum. The batting side has a fixed number of strikes leading to outs, and every swing carries terminal risk.
With roughly 146 pitches per side per game, baseball rewards explosive power and mass.
The ideal body type becomes larger, heavier, and built for short bursts; the human drag-racer. Over time, this narrows the field of who realistically reaches the top level.
For the next generation of fans and stars, this limits who can see themselves reflected there.
In watching test cricket, these youngsters see a version of sport that does not quietly tell them their body types and genes disqualify them from the highest level before their efforts begin.
Most elite sports entertainment traditionally favours specialisation. Height becomes currency in basketball and netball. Heavier, denser, frames dominate collision sports. Leaner builds prevail in many Olympic sports such as diving, gymnastics and running. Yet, the contrast between a sprinter and a marathon runner is unmistakable.
Baseball offers a clear illustration. A Hall of Fame batter reaches first base roughly but above three times in ten. The incentives push athletes toward size and power because the system demands it.
In this sense, these and so many sports are performing a ‘silent dismissal’ towards so many kids who pick up on the fact that they don’t and won’t fit the required mould having observed the differences even between their parents and those in the professional game.
If your parents are short, the chances of making the NBA are slim to none, though outliers do exist such as Muggsy Bogues at 160cm (NBA:1987 to 2001), Spud Webb at 170cm (NBA: 1985 to 1998) and currently LA Clippers point guard Yuki Kawamura who is also 170cm.
Temba Bavuma (right) is tiny compared to most of his teammates. Getty Images
Test cricket does not function this way. Fast bowling favours height and leverage, yet most roles in a Test XI demand endurance, decision-making, and resilience rather than a prescribed physique.
The presence of outliers is structural. South Africa’s captain Temba Bavuma stands at 162cm. His stature demonstrates that the zone of reasonable possibility remains wider than in many professional sports built around shorter timeframes. Yes, Bavuma is an outlier, but not when compared to Sachin Tendulkar at 165cm and, by that measure, Sam Harper is not. At 168 cm, Victoria’s wicket keeper/batter has been called up to the Australian test squad for the matches against South Africa.
To put this in context, Harper set the Victorian record for fastest Shield ton in just 64 balls and holds the record at wicketkeeper of nine dismissals in an innings.
The list of shorter high-profile batters is actually quite long, but it also includes David Warner at 171cm.
And then there is Sir Donald Bradman who is recorded at 170cm.
Bradman, Bavuma, Harper, Tendulkar, Warner and those like them matter beyond the professional game. Their physiques and accomplishments deliver a real community benefit. Test cricket remains accessible in a way that few elite sports are.
Children watching the Boxing Day Test are not only admiring excellence from a distance but seeing a potential future for themselves.
Pat Cummins signs autographs for young cricket fans. Getty Images
Outside the United States, participation is not an optional extra for fan engagement. Touching the ball, holding the bat, and bowling in the nets are central to how sporting loyalty forms and endures.
Unlike the United States, where fandom thrives without personal participation, Commonwealth sporting culture relies on a lived connection.
Cricket is complex. The Laws of Cricket fill 175 pages, with 42 laws and layers of rules for local playing conditions, not to mention the 476 pages of Tom Smith’s Cricket Umpiring and Scoring (2022). Yet complexity nor body type are not barriers; field accessibility can be.
Because of the variety of body types in the test format, cricket quietly keeps the door open. This aspect of the game is barely marketed. Development narratives focus on entertainment value rather than opportunity. Shortened formats are presented as the solution for youth engagement.
Australia’s Big Bash and England’s The Hundred have their place, just as Kerry Packer’s one-day revolution once did and still does with ODI cricket.
Yet these formats reintroduce the same ultimatum seen in baseball. Fewer balls and fewer chances create higher rewards for brute force. Bigger frames and power hitting dominate selection pathways. The everyday hero becomes less visible at the highest level.
Examples of these larger cricketers are in stark contrast to that of test.
Rahkeem Cornwall of West Indies batting against England at Old Trafford in 2020. nna\bgraham
Having played for the CPL’s Antigua and Barbuda Falcons, Rahkeem Cornwall is roughly 198cm (not shocking) but also weighs over 130kgs.
Yes, he too is an outlier at his size, even in T20, and he did play ten test matches for the West Indies as well but this is not the mean nor median for test bodies. It’s not to say that the big boys can’t but it certainly not the trend.
Each format, like each sport, prioritises a different body type. The engines for a drag racing, V8 Supercars, NASCAR and Fomula 1 are all different based on the needs of their sports.
T20 matches involve a similar number of deliveries in a similar timeframe to a baseball game. Efficiency through power hitting replaces endurance.
The physiological pathway narrows. Engaging children through short formats is sensible. Treating those formats as the primary vision of cricket is not.
Test cricket still offers something rare and valuable. It shows that sustained effort, adaptability, and patience retain value. It shows that excellence is not pre-selected at birth because of one’s genes but that one’s place at top levels remains attainable.
Promoting competitions like Sheffield Shield where venues are child-friendly with a hill and grass offer much. Parents can let their kids run around with other kids, make friends and just enjoy a day at the cricket for its own sake. At a time where people are searching or are starved for third spaces, there is opportunity.
Scorchers star Mahli Beardman takes a selfie with fans. Getty Images
It is easy to call out the shorter attention spans, but this applies just as much to Big Bash, where kids must sit still. Shield allows kids to run around and enjoy the cricket whilst showing a pathway forward for a kid that grows into any body-type.
For those interested in the game at its highest level, a strategy aimed at lasting participation that leads to viewership is the message worth amplifying.
Test cricket remains one of the few elite sports where a future feels genuinely attainable for a broad range of participants. That is not nostalgia. It is community value. It is strategic value.
