Talking Cricket: Are England’s central contracts beginning a shift away from Test cricket?

As England’s limited-over captain Eoin Morgan is awarded a central contract, we ask if the shift away from Test supremacy is inevitable….

England’s shift in focus from Test towards white-ball cricket was underlined with Wednesday’s announcement of the centrally-contracted players for 2016.

The ICC Champions Trophy and the Cricket World Cup will be held here in 2017 and 2019 and England’s Director of Cricket Andrew Strauss has made no secret of his priority to improve limited-over fortunes.

The England and Wales Cricket Board are in the process of attempting to cut the number of domestic first-class games to accommodate better quality List A and Twenty20 matches.

This year the One-Day Cup was given a specific block in the middle of the summer to focus performance levels, but was a farcical failure for overworked, and travelled, players and fans alike.

Now, England’s One-Day and T20 international captain Eoin Morgan is the first player not in the Test reckoning to be handed a central contract.

The Dubliner has 17 Tests to his name but his last was in February 2012. He subsequently lost his status on England’s elite list in 2013.

Morgan forewent his lucrative Indian Premier League contract last year to aid his chances of a recall. The left-hander returned to the County Championship this year but, after a failed first-class season with Middlesex, has never been further from selection for the longer form of the game.

Durham bowler Mark Wood, part of the Ashes-winning side, is also included among the 11 Central Contracts, however, and Strauss admits the selection process had a broader view this year.

“Morgan’s award reflects his status as captain of our limited-overs teams and the wider importance we place on white-ball cricket,” said Strauss.

“(Wood’s selection) reflects his excellent performances for England this summer and our expectation that he will have a role to play in all three formats of the international game over the next 12 months.”

The county chief executives and chairmen resisted the ECB’s desire to reduce the County Championship next season at a meeting last week.

The governing body will view that as the beginning of the discussion, however, and will come back to the counties to move the process on.

The fixtures for the 2016 domestic season will be published in mid-November but the decision as to whether only one team will be promoted next year can be decided as late as March.

That would allow for a 14-game Championship season in 2017 with every team playing each other twice in the top flight and a mixture of fixtures in the 10-county second tier.

The players want blocks for the limited-over formats, but equally value the County Championship above the other competitions.

The latest solution may be to move, or at least start, the domestic 50-over competition abroad to ease the congested summer.

That may not fall into line with preparing our players to progress in the forthcoming tournaments on home soil but it would help the all-round development of our players - in particular the spinners, who are desperate to get overs under their belt in favourable conditions.

Without doubt fans don’t want to see England overcome the historic hurdle that the international 50-over game has been.

However, few lovers of the sport in this country, if any, want it to come at the expense of first-class or Test cricket.

Since the inception of Twenty20 in 2003, there has been a suspicion that white-ball cricket would overtake and ultimately kill Tests.

England and Australia are the last two countries to prioritise the Test game but all the indications are there that the longest form of the game’s supremacy in this country may shortly disappear.