Drop T20Is, market Test cricket smartly: Graeme Smith

NEW DELHI: While many pundits and former cricketers ruminate on the future of Test cricket South African icon Graeme Smith has a suggestion for the ICC: shelve Twenty20 internationals and put more efforts into boosting interest in the five-day format.
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"I am a big believer that T20 cricket shouldn't be played at international level. Maybe have a World Cup every couple of years but it should be largely a domestic-based format," the former South African captain was quoted as saying at an event in Mumbai on Wednesday.
"Test cricket needs some context, how they get there I don't know. They need to invest in marketing that game a little bit better. So much money nowadays go into marketing the T20 game and rightly so because it's an amazing concept.
Smith, his country’s most-capped Test captain and second-highest run-getter after Jacques Kallis, also suggested that the ICC consider splitting the year cricket calendar into two halves.
"The ICC needs to sit down and work on a way forward for cricket. Maybe there should be six months a year that's just domestic T20 cricket and six months is international cricket. These things need to be debated because I don't think in the current system everything can survive,” said the 37-year-old former opener, who played 117 Tests.
Highlighting the amount of money spent on promoting T20 cricket across the globe, Smith spoke of the need for Test cricket to be similarly invested in.
"There needs to be investment. Maybe spend more money marketing Test cricket. So much money is spent in marketing the T20 format. Maybe there can be money marketing the stories and histories in Test cricket,” he said.
"What's great for the game is someone like Virat Kohli who wants to do well in Test cricket and be successful and set standard for everyone else. As long as people like him consider Test cricket valuable, it's important for the rest of the world."