I won’t care about ODIs even if England win the World Cup.

Think there’s a bit of chicken-and-egg there. England play less FC, England do badly at Tests, English public go off Tests.

I still don’t care that much about ODIs.

This is a fair point. I do wonder how much of a toss the likes of Australian, Sri Lankan and South African fans give about ODI cricket. 4 years ago I’d have happily seen it go, now that it’s the only format England are any good at I suddenly care a bit more.

Do other nations even play much First-class cricket?

Steve Smith has only played 53 FC games on top of his Tests.
Virat Kohli, only 32.
David Warner, 28.
Kane Williamson has played 63. I assume most of those are for Yorkshire and Gloucs though.

Alex Hales has played 96, and Adil Rashid 156.

Daneel, that’s one of the most depressing comments I’ve ever read on this site.

First-class cricket really does seem to have become an entry requirement for Test cricket in England.

Don’t think this view was quite so fiercely held a few years ago, but the notion that red and white ball cricket are entirely different really seems to have caught hold following the rise of T20.

The truth is that if you look at other nations, they field just as many Test cricketers as T20 specialists in their 50-over sides. No reason why players couldn’t travel in the opposite direction too.

Perhaps these players’ first-class experience has dipped below some threshold such that they really do lack meaningful experience now.

I wouldn’t mind Morgan as captain, even if he hasn’t played a FC game in almost 3 years.

And I’d have liked Hales to try to make it as a Test opener. Maybe Roy will get a chance? ( I doubt it, though)

But it increasingly feels as if test cricket is done (and if it is, so is my interest in the sport). It’s apparent that the ECB doesn’t care about it any more, and if they don’t, who does? I wonder if this is why they decided to finally let Ireland join the club?

ODIs (and T20s for that matter) as the gateway to the Test team is still pretty much the system in quite a few countries I think. The difference in England (and Australia) seems a bit starker than in some of the others.

Its been a theme in KCs recents posts, but its still puzzling. I can understand, for instance, why Buttler might find it difficult to crack the test team since Bairstow is class, but its harder to understand why Morgan or Roy or Hales aren’t candidates for a spot in the test team, even if their limited overs commitments prevent them from playing first class cricket.

It seems a bit like two rival enterprises at the moment, competing for the same resources, when it really should be two (or three) wings of the same enterprise.

You should give up writing long form articles and concentrate on tweets.