The organisation of tours is up to the host nation and the agreement of the visitor.

The ICC Future Tours agreement DECIDED BY NATION BOARDS only ensures that Team X will play Team Y at a certain time in a certain year.

The only other criteria is that a full tour consist of a minimum of 2 Test and 3 ODIs. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

So if a certain tour is too long in anyone's opinion, it is the fault of the host nation and/or the touring nation for agreeing to those terms.

The ICC are proposing or have changed their tour cycle from 5 to 6 years and this is an attempt to lessen the number of games played.

However, you can bet that individual board will just use it as an attempt to make tours longer with more games in those tours.

As someone who likes cricket, I like both forms of the game.

All I like to see on tour itineraries is that the two forms are never mixed. i.e. tour and competitive one day games are over before the warm up 3 day games and the Tests or vice versa.

I also think long tours are a joke. A team has no business being in another country for 3 months or so. Those long English tours are a thing of the past and good riddance to them.

The 1995 tour of England by the West Indies had a first game starting on 13th May and the last game on the 3rd September including a 3 day game and a 40 over match vs Yorkshire AFTER 6 Tests.

Their tour in 2000 was just a few weeks shorter.

Waste of time.

I find it funny how some players will spend 4-6 weeks away from home and get "homesick" yet want someone to tour their country for almost 3 months!!

As for sport not being a business......

A noble ideal some might say but far from reality.

This is a professional sport with some players signed to professional central (retainer) contracts from their nation's governing body.

Coming from a system with resources put into it by said governing body.

All of that requires money.

Now unless you want to have cake sales and raffles, a business it is to stay.

I am also a fan of both formats of the game. However, what I am saying is that I see test cricket going down in terms of fans watching it around the world not just england. For instance, in pakistan, not many people come to watch a tst match, however, now there is going to be even less fans coming to watch as shahid afridi wont be playing anymore. The ICC has to do something that will make test cricket more exciting for the fans. The ashes is exciting to england and australia fans because both teams are playing for monument that is treasured. if this can be copied to other test playing nations then that will up the fans im sure.
also, i dont see the point of playing 7Odi's in a tour. that is way too much and maximum should be 5.

Test cricket will NEVER be more exciting.

It is a game played over FIVE days, 6-7 hours per day where players break for lunch and tea!!!

It is a complete anachronism.

If cricket were being invented now in 2006 nobody would conceive or even dare suggest playing over 5 days as they'd be laughed at.

One day cricket will always garner bigger crowds for glaringly obvious reasons.

I too am a fan of the Twenty20 form of cricket.

IT is an unbashed slug/slog-fest.

It does not claim (stupidly) to be cricket in its purest form (sorry subcontinentals) - it claims to be a slog-fest purely to entice new viewers/fans/supporters/anyone who has a red cent in his pocket.

It is not cricket. It is baseball. Nearly.

And like Rugby sevens, one could play an entire tournament in a day. Between four teams at any rate.

Fantastic. Six hours cricket, three matches and a cup won.

Great stuff. And none of that "powerplay" "taking the shine off the ball" and "keeping wickets in hand 'till the slog starts" nonsense.

Let's just slog from the off and see if we can interest anybody new into the delights of modern cricket.

Splendid.

If only it was called "Twenty20-you'll-never-see-a-dead-bat" then they could advertise it as saying: "it does exactly what it says on the tin."

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Red-it, Red-it, Read it and wept

...And a one day match will do "as it says on the tin" nothing more than interest fans for one day at a time.

How excited were the cricket fans of Bangladesh for THREE WHOLE DAYS during this last Test match against Australia?

OK. They lost. As anyone with an ounce of non-Bangladeshi salt could always see that they were going to.

But for three days, they must have been awfully excited.

If they'd won a one day international - it would be a start toward shinning up the ladder of international cricket.
But after three days, they wouldn't be as excited as they must've been at the start of play on the last day of this last Test match.

If you can win a match after wrestling with the opposition for five whole days, and they happen to be the best at that form of cricket in the world, then you really have achieved something.

I think it should be said here, that Bangladesh have achieved something; at living with the Australians for so long in this match, that they actually had to pull something quite special out of the bag to win.

But tomorrow - in the grand scheme of ODIs is another match and the former is soon forgotten. Though not a FIVE DAY TEST match. Because that lasts FIVE DAYS - probably over 300 overs and possibly as many as forty wickets and is therefore more intersting than a one day match.

In MY HUMBLE OPINION.

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Red-it, Red-it, Read it and wept

I disagree. There are a great many afro-Caribbeans in this country, and all England-West Indies matches are extremely well supported.

THIS I agree with however, and this has come up as a result of our frightful "nanny state."

"Oooh boys, if you don't like it, complain... and if you're lucky you could win hundreds of thousands of pounds for being made to do something you don't want to do."

Not quite sure who's fault that really is... though the ghastly example of the American litigious system must take a part of the blame.

In my own mind, Steve Harmison should clearly not play foreign tours - he doesn't have the heart for it, and anyone over thirty, should be allowed to take every third winter off, because (let's face it) the wear and tear on the minds and bodies of the over thirties in international cricket is too bloody much; particularly when you have a domestic season of five months followed by two six week tours either side of Christmas.

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Red-it, Red-it, Read it and wept

I thought Harmo generally did Ok in pakistan, just didint have a lot of luck. His body language from the little I saw of it in india wasnt dreadful. As for he increased wear and tear on the minds and bodies of the over 30s - is this just restricted to cricketers ???!?!?!?

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Nothing says "Obey Me" like a bloody head on a fence post!

ODI's mean World Cup, World Cup means the status of world champions. To be regarded the number one cricketing nation you have to be good at ODI's as well as test matches, not one trick ponies who can play one format and not the other.

ODIs are not the best but are important, England need to get much better at them, and this common attitude of "It doesn't matter if we lose because tests are more important" is one of the main reasons England are so down in the dumps in the format, it's apparant in their body language and it needs addressing.

I think Olly has addressed part of this issue. And test cricket will be boring if the players allow it to be so. But it can also provide sustained entertainment, as well as sustained passages of play that purists will appreciate. ODI cricket doesn't give you feats like Lara's 153 v Aus, Laxman and Dravid's stand, again v Aus, Atherton v SA in 1996 and then v Allan Donald in 1998, or Devon Malcolm v SA in 1994. OK, I know test cricket isn't always like that, and can be dour at times, but sides have generally adapted the way they play to make for some fantastic test matches over the last 3 or so years.

You can enjoy watching a 100m sprint, with speed and power, or you can enjoy watching a marathon, with stamina, mental strength and tactical awareness.

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Just what is going off out there?

Look Olli,

You find ODIs tough to rememeber, you're perfectly, perfectly, perfectly within your rights to forget them. With the kind of record England have at one-day cricket (not just now, but over the years, ever since one-day cricket started) I suppose its probably easir to forget one-day cricket then remember it! I don't have a problem with the English masses not having interest in the ODI game, they're entitled to do so, as far as I'm concerned they can pretty much remain obsessed about the Ashes as long as they want to, because that way, they'll probably never ever get to over come their one-day jinx and us subcontinental sides will have much fun in beating you guys over and over again :P but but but what I don't like is the constant degrading of the the one-day game it self. You don't like it? Fair enough. Don't. No one is exactly pushing England to include 7 ODIs in India's next tour to England. Or is anyone? But a lot of other people do like one-day cricket, and when you tour the sub-continent, for their sake, you should be perfectly prepared to play a good number of one-day matches. In fact, is it just me, or does any one else also feel this hate of one-day cricket is quite strictly an English thing, most of the other people around the world don't seem to have any major issues with the limited overs game, so England, whilst under no obligation to improve their one-day performances or start liking the one-day, are nevertheless under obligation to play one-day games when they tour other countries (the remark about how England should quit altogether in my intial post was a sarcastic one and I'm surprised no one got that). To make it clear, all I'm asking for is for people to quit with the constant bashing of the One-day game as useless (its not going to convince those who like the game), and at the same time give up your hopes of a one-day free tour to the sub-continent (that's also not going to happen)...so its pretty much an exercise in futilty. Also for the record, I like both forms of cricket, in fact, I like every form of cricket. And I also like test cricket best but I think at the same time that no form of cricket is useless or boring or unexciting. As long as its cricket it appeals to me.