We’re Not Doing Any Good for Test Cricket Says Angelo Mathews

In recent times, the experts constantly keep discussing the lack of interest amongst the younger generation of players to play test cricket. Virat Kohli, Ben Stokes, Steve Smith, Joe Root, and Kane Williamson are a few players who have throughout the years been keen on playing in promoting test cricket. The introduction of the ICC World Test Championship was a good initiative to rekindle the long-lost spark of red-ball cricket. However, despite all these, there are some teams that don’t get equal opportunities.

Sri Lanka is currently playing a 2-match test series against New Zealand. A victory in this series is crucial for the Sri Lankan team to keep them alive in the WTC Finals race. The veteran player Angelo Mathews spoke about how despite being a full-time test cricket-playing nation. The team only gets to play handful of red-ball games a year.

We’re not doing any good for Test cricket playing only five Tests: Angelo Mathews

Addressing the press at the end of day 1, Angelo Mathews said, “Unfortunate that we are not playing too many Test matches this year. It’s as few as five. We are coming off a long layoff – the last Test was six months back. Everyone’s talking about Test cricket dying, but we’re not doing any good for Test cricket playing only five Tests a year. Hopefully, we’ll get more matches this year. Five feels like not enough.”

After putting up a decent fight with the bat in the first innings, Sri Lanka scored 355 runs. The bowlers troubled the New Zealand batter but after a great contribution from Daryl Mitchell (102) and Matt Henry (72), the hosts were able to take a minimal lead. Coming out to bat in the second innings, the Sri Lankan team is 83/3 by end of day 3. With two more days to go, Sri Lanka currently has a 65 runs lead. Speaking about the test cricket schedule for Sri Lanka, after wrapping up the current series, they will play a historic test against Ireland in April and then 2 test games against Pakistan in July.