Bleak future for Test cricket: Holding

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Former West Indies fast bowler Michael Holding feels Test cricket will become 'insignificant' in five years time and cited the ever-gaining popularity of the Twenty20 format for the bleak future of the longer version.

"I definitely fear for Test cricket," Holding was quoted as saying in the New Zealand Herald. "Test cricket may be around in five years time but it will become insignificant, it will not be relevant."

Holding is saddened by the rise of T20 and said the format cannot produce world-class players.

"When you see what is happening all around the world with all this Twenty20 cricket - Australia have now gone to two months of Twenty20 cricket, solitary Twenty20, nothing else. The format is not good because you cannot produce good cricketers from Twenty20, but also because it is so highly biased financially."

"Kids all around the place want to play Twenty20 because they can earn in one season of Twenty20 what they earn in four or five years of Test cricket. And if I was a young man today, I would want to do that myself. I might get $800,000 to go and play six weeks in India - done. I don't blame the cricketers, I blame the administrators," he said.

Holding also sees a dearth of quality fast bowlers in the times to come. "It is pretty ordinary," he said of the current fast bowling lot.

''You don't have too many fast bowlers around the world these days and I think there is so much cricket being played, it is difficult to keep on producing fast bowlers," he added.