Why Sri Lanka are playing less Test matches

The joy of winning a Test match – Sri Lanka beat England at Oval 2024

• SLC CEO says “If you increase the number of Test matches we’ll have to reduce the number of ODIs and T20Is which is going to hit us economically and financially” 

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Sri Lanka is scheduled to play only 4 Test matches for 2025 and this paucity has brought out a lot of discontent especially from former Sri Lanka Captain Angelo Mathews who has expressed his concern over the number of Tests and criticised the ICC of treating Sri Lanka unfairly in terms of Test match allocation.

Sri Lanka will play 12 Tests in the next World Test Championship (WTC) 2-year cycle (2025-27), two each against Bangladesh, India and South Africa at home and two each against West Indies, Pakistan and New Zealand away. Sri Lanka will begin the new 2025-27 WTC cycle by hosting Bangladesh in June this year. Unfortunately for Sri Lanka this will be the only Tests along with the two against Australia from the previous cycle (2023-25) for the year 2025.

Sri Lanka’s WTC schedule for 2026 shows a slight improvement consisting of 6 Tests – 2 Tests in June against West Indies (away), 2 Tests in August against India (home), and 2 Tests in November against Pakistan (away).

Sri Lanka will play 4 Tests in 2027 of the WTC schedule with 2 Tests in January against New Zealand (away) and 2 Tests in February-March against South Africa (home) which will complete their quota of 12 matches in the 2025-27 WTC cycle.Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are the only two countries playing a lesser number of Test matches in the 2025-27 WTC cycle with 12 each. Australia plays the most with 22, England 21, India 18, New Zealand 16, South Africa and West Indies 14 each, and Pakistan 13. Explaining Sri Lanka’s position, Sri Lanka Cricket’s CEO Ashley de Silva told Daily FT: “There is an ICC model which people don’t realise. According to the model, during the cycle you have to play certain teams for the WTC. The 2023-2025 WTC ends in March with the Australian tour so the next cycle will commence after the final in June. When we go into the FTP according to the model we may get about 6-8 Test matches the following year (2026). That’s how it works.”

Asked why Sri Lanka play only 2 Tests against each country in the WTC and not more and, why they cannot arrange to play Tests with countries outside the WTC like Afghanistan, Ireland and Zimbabwe, De Silva explained, “We could organise Test matches against teams which are not taking part in the WTC, but the cost factor, it’s a massive loss for us. We also have to look at financial sustainability. Playing more than 2 Tests is also the same. We can, but we will lose out on the revenue. It depends on the availability of the dates also.”

“We have a very tight schedule. We have only 8 months of the year to schedule our bilateral tours because we have to keep 3 months away for the IPL. Nobody plays international cricket during that time. Then we play our two leagues T20 and T10 which takes about another month. So four months. Within the remaining 8 months you have to play the Test matches, the ODIs and the T20Is. If you increase the number of Test matches we’ll have to reduce the number of ODIs and T20Is which is going to hit us economically and financially.”

“To encourage players to play Test cricket we have increased their match fees. Not a single other country pays the match fees we pay the players this time. Except for a few Test players, the rest of them are playing Test cricket, T20I cricket, ODI cricket and league cricket. You can’t blame the ICC because they are the member countries. Players talk like that because they don’t know what is taking place.”

Emphasising further, De Silva said that most of the countries play more ODIs and T20Is than Tests because the broadcasters will always look at the ODIs and T20Is which will bring them the revenue.

“It’s about the broadcasting rights, we don’t get much from the spectator attendance, and it’s the viewership. When you look at the amounts that are being offered for the ODIs and T20Is it is very evident the preference is for white ball cricket.”