Wisden defends importance of Test cricket

A global economic crisis, militant attacks in Mumbai, a Texan billionaire under investigation for an alleged $8 billion fraud and a Twenty20 cricket competition sanctioned but not controlled by the game's authorities.

By any standards the 2008 calendar year was an extraordinary 12 months for a game chronicled with unmatched authority by the Wisden cricketers' almanac.

Since Wisden went to press, the Sri Lanka cricket team has come under direct attack in Lahore and Texan Allen Stanford, who bankrolled the $20 million Twenty20 match between West Indies and an England XI last year, has been charged with fraud.

This year's Indian Premier League Twenty20 competition has been shifted to South Africa because of security fears after the Mumbai attacks.

Despite the upheavals on and off the field, Wisden editor Scyld Berry believes the fundamental qualities of bat and ball remain unchanged.

"An astonishing, unique, game in all its forms," Berry concludes in his editor's notes. "Cricket has regenerated and grown, over the centuries, as no other sport has done."

Berry acknowledged the appeal of the Twenty20 game and the place of the IPL in the annual calendar.

"The Indian population enjoyed it, particularly the Indian females, the TV audience enjoyed it. They were turning on people who never watch cricket normally," he said.

"If that's what it takes to get people in to the ground and watching on TV, then that's all to the good. It can't really be damaging to cricket for its popularity to be increased."

"Wisden this year launched a Wisden Test XI to do its small bit for enshrining Test cricket as its ultimate form of the game," Berry said.

"Everybody says, without exception, that Test cricket is the primary form of the game. Not just existing Test players but someone like Kieron Pollard when he was nominated as West Indian one-day player of the year. He said 'my ultimate ambition is to play Test cricket'.

"So even the players who could have been perceived as Twenty20 specialists, their ambition is to play Test cricket.

"So it does seem to be, almost universal, that Test cricket is the paramount form of the game. Those words need to be substantiated by administrative action."

In the meantime, Berry believes the non-stop action of the Twenty20 game has already filtered through to Test cricket, as evidenced by the selection of Indian opener Virender Sehwag as international player of the year.

Sehwag is third on a table of the fastest-scoring Test batsmen, behind Australia's Adam Gilchrist and his compatriot Kapil Dev who both went in down the order. He averages 51.06 in Test cricket with an overall scoring rate of 78.14 per 100 balls, which would be an excellent rate in 50 overs cricket.

"Virender Sehwag has raised the bar of Test match opening batting to the point where last year against seriously good opposition in every case, no weak opponents, he was scoring at over five runs an over," Berry said.

"Eighty-five runs every 100 balls, no opening batsman in the history of Test cricket has come close to that. Sehwag has gone 25 percent ahead of anybody else who has opening the batting in Test cricket and still averaging at well over 50."