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a debate started up which i thought was interesting. which is the more important in cricket?

my view is that i think ODI seem to be underestimated so much in this country, it is the style of cricket that gets you the icc champions trophy and the WC...the tests bring us the ashes...thats it. Not saying its not important cause it is.

i prefer watching one day games and think it is a better style of cricket to watch for those that enjoy the sport but can't sit there and watch 5 days play.

for the tests though, i throughly enjoy us winning the ashes and would love us to do so everytime and beat the other countries....but if i had to choose one or the other i would have to be swayed towards the ODI's cause it gives us a proper bigger reputation in cricket if you win the world cup, more interesting to actually watch aswell.

LOI's have a place in the scheme of things, but are mainly predictable and a bit dull.

 If you want to see a whole days play and enjoy yourself then fair enough.

  For the proper cricket fan though, the Test can reach the pinnacle of sport as was witnessed last summer.

 :toppost:  bang on as ever

Tests for me. Takes serious skill to play at test level, more so than in the one day team imo. The style of play is so different and its amazing to sit and watch a game totally swing throughout a day

I'd sooner watch a Test Match anyday.

Tests all the way. Fuckin' love them. Every one is so different, the intracasies and skills involved as the game evolves is just gripping stuff. ODIs are just slog, nurdle, slog and then the same for the other side - a bit predictable. Still like one-day cricket though and wish England were better at it but Test cricket is where it's at.

see i can't watch test cricket for too long...just gets boring. i like the game dont get me wrong there, can be very interesting and intense. its a hard one really.

what are peoples thoughts then about the 20-20 world cup thats suppose to be held in england? good or bad for cricket?

overall i think it has been great for cricket, has got loads of interest, taunton most games is full....will be now after we won it ( :) )

  At first  I was dead against Twenty 20 :old: but if it gets the punters in it has a place, but one day cricket used to do that....what fucked it, was first BBC scrapping the Sunday League, then the players Gerald Ratner style saying it was crap and they hated it..

  There was a time, when you could settle down in front of the box, having only just woken up, with at least two different hangovers, to a Sunday game with John Arlott doing the commentary from Worcester or Taunton.

 Probably marks the zenith of public service broadcasting in this country.

i'm pretty much against international 20/20 - it's done a fantastic job to revive domestic cricket but if the countries start playing it consistently people will stop turning up the county matches which was the whole point of it.

hardly anyone goes to county championship matches anymore. i went to one days play at somerset few years ago and there was like 100 people there max.

but twenty20 has improved people's perceptions of county cricket and therefore attendances have risen over the last couple of years

at cheltenham for every one-day game there is a full house of 5,500+

The Cheltenham festival has always been very well supported, but one dayers have killed the County Championship to be honest. Not sure whether that is a good or bad thing.

Test matches these days are not like they used to be. I think one of the things that was so exciting about the Ashes series was the fact that it was played like a ODI. For the purist though the technique of so many of the batsmen was so suspect that you knew that wickets were going to fall pretty quickly. Back in my youth I remember watching the likes of Boycott, Tavare, Greenwich, Richards, Gavaskar, Vishwanath, Sadiq, Zaheer and the Chappels. When this lot were playing you knew it was gonna be hours or sometimes days before they got out because they were so good !

NMH

in terms of how popular the game is ODI's are more important. more people watch and its often more entertaining. however Test are the ultimate cricket match to test your skills for 5 days! its a close call really

the first point is certainly not true in england, australia or the west indies. certainly more people turn up to odis in the sub-continent but is this partly due to economics?

the second point is surely in the eye of the beholder and most people here disagree. what is important to me is that the players care much more about tests than odis (note the number of players that have retired from odis or have considered it to prolong their test careers); because they are just that, an ultimate test of a cricketer's abilties where as you can get away with being a bit of journeyman hack in odis to some extent.

on a personal note, i've never really enjoyed one dayers, doesn't hold much appeal to me. test matches are where it's at.

i love watching 20/20 though, it's great fun - the finals day are a great days viewing.

Tests for me :) ,like Boeta says,the way a test can change over the five days,the ebb and flow of a test as opposed to ODIs just makes them more interesting.I also love the madness of the fact that a game can last for five days and still be a draw,also the sight of men in whites is a strangely exciting :) Tbh odis bore me most of the time,there are too many that don't mean anything.I guess if we were World Champs i might think
 differently  :-))( Still if i had to choose between winning the Ashes or winning the World Cup,i'd choose the Ashes everytime.