The Hundred is eating Test cricket's lunch and the ECB brought the cutlery

Spectator Australia · Mike Jakeman · Sunday 19 April 2026

The Hundred is eating Test cricket's lunch and the ECB brought the cutlery

English cricket's structural problem isn't Duckett's average — it's that the money, the audiences and the talent have all moved to the short form, and administrators keep pretending otherwise.

Test cricket's dying because the best cricketers would rather hit sixes for a franchise in Dubai than grind out a draw in Multan, and you can't blame them — the IPL pays in a fortnight what Lord's pays in a career. The ECB built the Hundred to save the long game and ended up feeding the beast that's eating it.

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