All test cricket fans should stop following the matches on the internet and start actually watching the games on tv.”

I would watch it on TV, but the ECB took it off free-to-air, and I can’t justify the expense of a Sky subscription for the England home matches and the foreign tours that are on in watchable hours.

While we’re Modi bashing has anyone noticed the lack of IPL fantasy games around this year? This is because the IPL licence now expressly prohibits it.

This is an excellent way to kill one of the few ways for me to give a crap about matches involving teams or players I don’t normally support. Well done Modi you ***** ****-faced ******** of an excuse of a ********.

In short, whenever I see the name “Lalit Modi”, I think “***** ****-faced ******** of an excuse of a ********”.

On the one hand, there’s doing wrong through inaction. On the other, there’s Lalit ***** ****-faced ******** of an excuse of a ******** Modi.

The solution to the formats problem is to kill the idea that they have to compete against each other. There ought to be room for all. One answer, relatively simple but requiring standardising the tours and putting them on a proper schedule (and thus something that the BCCI, and to a lesser extent all the other boards, won’t countenance) is to combine the three formats into a single competition.

Imagine this. A team turns up once every four years. They play five 20/20 matches, three ODIs and three tests. Each of these matches has some points awarded to the winner (e.g. 1 for a 20/20 and an ODI, 3 for a test). These matches are always the first of any longer series, but if more are needed (like five tests in the Ashes, or thirty-two ODIs for an Indian tour) they can be added onto the schedule (no points, though). This way every match counts, and the points scoring matches don’t impact on the desire to win the series if it is longer.

If you take the example of the next Ashes series, England would win 8 points for the one day matches, and 9 points for the tests. These seventeen points go to a league table, and once every four years the top two (or the top four) play a combined-format series to decide the proper World Champions at Cricket.

It doesn’t have to be as I’ve described above – there are dozens of possible systems that are probably better. But with a little thought AND SOME INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION a system could be implemented that ties all the forms of cricket together, thus ensuring the interest level in all of them, while at the same time not distracting from the historical aspect of winning important series.

You get 4 miserly overs and two deliveries in which to play yourself in. If you come in after the tenth over you are forced to have a hoik.

If test cricket is a full dirty weekend then T20 is like accidentally being wanked off by a pickpocket

There will never be a better sentence written on 20/20 cricket than ‘Comparing it to wank is an insult to masturbation’.

Now reason I say this is I really fear many advertisers will pull out from advertising during test cricket matches which will eventually lead to sports channels trying to bid for 20/20 or ODI coverage instead of tests.

While I am crazy for test cricket, I really fear for its survival purely if the test fans dont actually watch the match live. Test cricket needs proper markets, whole lot of advertisers who find value in sponsoring test matches to genuinely survive. I know many people will dissagree, but thats the truth.

Interest rates won’t dwindle in terms of number of people, but each person is likely to be interested in Twenty20 for a shorter duration. Once again, we base this largely on ourself and some friends and our attitude to one-dayers and Twenty20s.

Twenty20 has not been around for long. We’ve been with Test cricket for 20-odd years and probably enjoy it more than ever. After five years of Twenty20, we still enjoy it, but not as much as we did.