It seems an odd moment to consider rescue plans for Test cricket. Ben Stokes has just played the greatest attacking innings by an Englishman in modern times. The stage, Newlands Cricket Ground in Cape Town, was equal to the performance. So lush was the outfield, so blue the sky, so crisp the outline of Table Mountain, that Test cricket seemed like a dreamscape. The ambience alone justified turning up.
There is a lesson there, because people did turn up. Real spectators, sitting on white seats, joyously watched the match – arguably a more remarkable fact than Stokes’s imperious record-breaking. Proper crowds at Tests (apart from in England, Australia and Barbados) are now almost unheard of. When England played Pakistan in the UAE last October, the media and players often outnumbered the fans. It was like commentating on a deserted funeral.
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