Et tu, Usman?

PL wrestles with Usman Khawaja's bleak prediction

If people like Usman Khawaja are telling you we must at least consider conceding Test cricket’s highest ground to T20 cricket, it deserves attention. If the veteran of 84 Test matches and over 200 first-class games says that selling the family farm is potentially the only way to keep the kids happy, we should take note.

It’s an odd thing to conclude when the only reality at hand is the further commercialisation of the Big Bash League, but allowing private money into the domestic competition will only increase the push to remove the remaining Test from January. The Boxing Day match may be a more difficult barnacle to detach, but once the vandals are emboldened, there may be no stopping them.

Pardon my alarmism.

Believe the administrators when they tell you both the Boxing Day and New Year’s Test are heritage listed. For now, at least. Believe the players and administrators when they tell you that Test cricket is primary, but worry when one of the former admits that radical change is inevitable.

The Boxing Day Test

It’s not often something a cricketer says keeps me awake at night, but I can’t let go of what Khawaja was reported to have said about expanding the Big Bash League last week.

“At some level, at some stage, everything that grows must change,” Khawaja told this the Nine papers. “As much as I love the Boxing Day and SCG Test match and I don’t want to move them, if it’s better for the growth of the game and allows Australian players to play in the Big Bash, I think it’s worth talking about and exploring. People don’t like change.

“My view is always for the growth of the game. I do think the BBL needs to be privatised for the growth of the game, but I do believe certain boundaries need to be put around how we privatise it, who we’re privatising to, what control CA has in terms of the product.

“There are some things we need to maintain, but also you need to let the bird fly. We can’t just keep holding the reins forever, because it’s a product that ... look at sport in general, the NBA, Major League Baseball, these sports that have been growing through privatisation, I think the pros outweigh the cons, but there’s still a responsibility to the game. You can do both.”

Khawaja says he is a traditionalist, but also a realist. He is a man I respect and one who has had my back on matters more important than cricket fixtures, and while I think he’s got this wrong, the fact that someone of his pedigree is willing to this position concerns me greatly.