International Cricket Council (ICC) chair Greg Barclay has voiced his support for women’s test matches to last for routine five days while also raising doubts over the place of the longer format in the future of women’s cricket.
Women’s test matches are played over four days as opposed to over five days in the men’s game.
Only five test matches have been played by the women’s team since 2017 which all have ended in draws.
England captain Heather Knight and bowler Kate Cross have backed five-day matches for women and said that women cricketers were fit enough to cope with the physical demands of longer matches after the drawn Ashes test in January.
England, Australia, and India are the only nations to have played a women’s test match in the last five years.
“Most people would say five days are required,” Barclay told the BBC. “If they are going play it, my personal view is they should have five days to play it in.”
But Greg Barclay also went on to add that the longest format may not be the way forward for women’s cricket.
He called shorter formats of cricket “the way of the future” for the sport, saying one-day internationals and Twenty20 cricket were more appealing for fans.
“It is where broadcasters are putting their resources,” Barclay said. “It is what is driving the money.
“To play test cricket you have got to have structures domestically. They don’t really exist in any of the countries at the moment. I can’t really see women’s test cricket evolving at any particular speed.
“That’s not to say any countries that choose to play test cricket can’t do so. But I don’t see it being any part of the landscape moving forward to any real extent at all.”
His comments obviously did not go down too well with former player-turned-broadcaster Isabelle Westbury calling Barclay’s comments “disappointing” on Twitter.
England will host South Africa in a one-off test later this month, in what will be the visitors’ first test since 2014.
