How good are we at test cricket?

[Kriterion_BD]

I don't know, test cricket is a bit up and down at the moment with no one really dominating home and away. I could easily see Pakistan or South Africa getting into the top two.

Here's what I suspect and kind of even hope will happen: with every single Test match being critically important (I think BD will play the fewest at 14 matches per cycle and England-India-AUS will probably 20-25 Tests per cycle), home teams will really make pitches to suit their respective games. This will eventually have the following downstream effects:

1) Any batsmen who scores runs will be the real deal, at least in those conditions. Especially true for away batsmen.
2) Since all teams will do decently well at home, it will force teams to learn to cope with overseas conditions to get the edge.
3) The boring 500 pitches will all but disappear.

Remember this was mostly decided in a time when loads of Tests were boring draws played out on highways were the 5th day pitch was just as good to bat on as the first session of Day 1.

Overall, an improvement IMO.

Let teams compete and make it the ultimate test of cricketing ability...the reason its called TEST cricket.

[TapsC]

Flat wickets must be banned in test cricket. Thats one thing thats been killing the game. As a fan you dont want to see your team bowling for 2 days. Create pitches where something is always happening and it will attract fans. Games where 2 wickets fall the whole day create no atmosphere at all. This is because people are used to something always happening in shorter formats

[Jemisi]

I mostly agree, but I don't mind an occasional road being prepared. It provides a different sort of challenge for the bowler and even one for the batsmen.