'Char din ki sirf chandni hi hoti hai...Test cricket nahin': Virender Sehwag backs traditional format

International Cricket Council’s (ICC) suggestion that four-day Test matches may be the future of international red-ball cricket is something many are not agreeing with.

The likes of Virat Kohli, Ravi Shastri, Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar, Nathan Lyon and Neil Wagner have all opposed the idea.

Now responding to the same is former India opener Virender Sehwag. The cricketer has thrown his weight behind 5-day Tests and joined the wagon in backing the traditional format.

“I have always supported the change. I captained India in its first T20 game and I am proud of that. I was also part of India’s World T20 winning team in 2007. But five-day Test cricket is romance,” Sehwag said while delivering the seventh Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi Lecture at the BCCI Awards.

“Innovations like names in jerseys and pink ball Tests are fine. But diaper and five-day Tests should only be changed when it's finished when it can’t be used anymore. Five-day Test is not finished. Test cricket is a 143-year old fit person. It has a soul. ‘Char din ki sirf chandni hi hoti hai....Test cricket nahin’ (four days of the moon is fine, not Test cricket),” he further added.

The ICC Cricket Committee is said to meet and discuss the idea, but it would receive any backing from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). 

“I don’t think that’s fair to the purest format of the game,” Kohli said when asked about four-day Tests.

“How cricket started initially, five-day Test matches was the highest test you can have at the international level. It shouldn’t be altered,” he went on to add.