TOI Exclusive | For Tests to really grow, we need to have two tiers: Michael Vaughan

Former England captain Michael Vaughan says ICC should create separate windows, spread across the season, to keep the longer format relevantLONDON: Michael Vaughan doesn’t like to speak about his son Archie, who is playing for the England U-19s against India U-19 here in England. But he is at peace with the younger generation’s approach to Test cricket.

Vaughan spoke to TOI on modern-day Test batting and how the format can stay relevant. Excerpts...Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!Has the batting textbook for Tests changed?Yes, for the better. This is an incredible era for the game. Test cricket is more of a spectacle than it has ever been. I’d love for it to be two tiers, as long as the wealth of the game is spread more evenly across the board.I want more consequence riding on every Test match and every series, rather than just talking about the big Ashes series, the big series against India or India-Australia.

This generation has been bred on white-ball franchise cricket. How do you see that impacting Test cricket?We’ve been talking about saving Test cricket for 30-40 years now. Test cricket’s always going to be around. It’s just about how to make Test cricket more of a spectacle. The World Test Championship final was magnificent. How can we get to more of those kind of occasions on a regular basis?How can we give the broadcaster more of a narrative around the Test game? It’s just a little bit sporadic for me. It’s too spread out.You’re never quite sure who’s playing when.

I’d love small windows around the year when everyone just plays Test cricket at around the same time.The best players still have the best techniques at Test level. Shubman Gill, Joe Root, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Harry Brook, Rishabh Pant and Jamie Smith are flamboyant at times, but fundamentally they know how to defend. We should talk them up. I hope the next generation are being taught that, ‘yes, you’ve got to play the shots, but you’ve got to be able to defend the ball’.Gill, in the first two games here, has given a masterclass on how to play Test cricket. Throughout Pant’s Test career so far, he’s been able to stay in because he’s got good defence. I hope the next generation of coaches aren’t just all about attack.

Can ‘Bazball’ be misinterpreted at the age-group level?‘Bazball’ has been great for the game. When England are playing well, they play with a bit of sense as well. The chase in Leeds was very sensible. But what they’re doing is, they’re playing on good pitches so they can play this expansive game.When they first started, they were dancing down and trying to launch it to all parts. Now they’re just playing good cricket shots. They’ve been exposed a bit by India. But that is the way to play.Australia in the 1990s and West Indies in the 1980s played expansively. The best teams in any sport play aggressively and try and get on their front foot to dominate. That’s what England are trying to do. They need to lift a prominent trophy or two.

Fingers will be pointed if the India series and Ashes don’t go well this year.When you speak to young kids, do you think they understand the significance of an Ashes series or even Test cricket?People forget that these days these kids are seeing more cricket. In our time it was just on TV. You didn’t have a tablet, you didn’t have a phone to be able to watch all the clips and all the highlights and all the favourite shows. I don’t even think kids know what newspapers are, they know what digital content is.The distribution of the wealth of the game is very important. The pitches in the two Test matches in Barbados and Grenada weren’t good enough. It’s because they don’t have the funds to be able to have the ground staff that we have here in the UK or you have in India or Australia. For the game to really grow, we need to have these two tiers.In sport you need consequence and you need to know that if you fail regularly, you’re going to be in tier two.

What if players of certain countries don’t care about the format?I think they will care if we create the Test product into short winners in short windows. I’m a big advocate for us playing more Test cricket here in the UK. Why can’t we host series here? We have a Test-loving nation, we have fantastic grounds and if facilities aren’t going to be as good overseas, why can’t we provide more Test cricket here in the UK for other countries?How do you regularize WTC then?I would make it very simple. We should have Test cricket here for a short period in the English summer, or the Caribbean at this time. And then there should be a subcontinent leg of the Test tour and there should be a southern hemisphere leg of the Test tour.