Kohli sticks to his guns on five Test venues

When Indian captain Virat Kohli opined last month that Test matches in the country should be confined to just five venues, it met with mixed response. Critics and fans dissected the pros and cons behind his bold thought.While some felt playing Test cricket in traditional venues like Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Delhi and Bengaluru would ensure interest for the long format is maintained following some poor crowd response at the newer venues, others felt robbing smaller centres of such a privilege would hinder the growth of the sport.Kohli, who hailed Indore after it successfully staged its debut Test between India and New Zealand in 2017, was asked on Wednesday if he would change his mind about playing Tests in just five grounds. The Indian skipper though stuck to his guns, saying India, like England, Australia and South Africa, should enjoy home advantage and not be worried about what they might encounter by playing across the length and breadth of the country.“A stadium like Indore attracted a decent crowd but a lot of others didn’t. And it can’t be that one stadium gets games and the others don’t. So I think the way we go abroad and know the grounds we’re playing in, like the MCG, Sydney, Perth and Brisbane. We know what to expect, what kind of crowd to expect, people know on what dates to expect a match. So it (my thoughts) was about creating that kind of culture,” said Kohli.“If you speak of the crowd, they’ll show up for every match. Indore is the kind of place where if you play a T20, you won’t find a single empty seat. In Tests you will still find them. And in one-dayers it won’t be empty at all. So I think it’s a deep conversation. It’s not about criticising cities or taking away matches from them. Just a vision about how we can get together and raise Test cricket, that’s the perspective from which we’re trying to discuss this topic. Not to take away anything from any association or city."In Australia the traditional Boxing Day Test is played from Dec 26 at the MCG followed by the New Year’s Test at SCG from January 3. In England, for most five-match Test series, Birmingham hosts the first game, Lord’s the second and The Oval the final game. The Oval also closes out their international cricket summer every season. Centurion in South Africa hosts the Boxing Day Test and Cape Town the New Year’s game.Kohli felt non-traditional venues should be compensated by giving them limited-over matches. “T20s and ODIs should definitely be hosted, people should definitely get to watch cricket. But the situation of Test cricket now is that we’re all figuring out how to keep it at the top. So from my point of view, that (five venues) was an option. It’s an option and we’ll see how it could be executed.”