The 1983 West Indies Test against India at Sabina Park in Jamaica came alive on the last day, or rather, in the final session of the last day. The West Indies had replied to India’s 251 in the first innings by scoring 254. The entire fourth day had been lost due to rain, and the game seemed headed for a tame draw at tea on the final day, with India 168 for 6.

But Andy Roberts thought otherwise. His stirring spell after tea, sprinkled liberally with short balls threatening rib cage and throat proved too much for the Indians and they quickly succumbed, leaving the West Indies with 172 to make and about 28 overs to make them.

What happened next was one of the most rousing periods of attacking batting that one could ever hope to see. Led by Vivian Richards’ scarcely believable 61 from 36 deliveries in an era when the Twenty20 (T20) format was still decades in the future, the West Indies won when Jeffrey Dujon struck a six in the last over in fast-fading light to carry the home team to a four-wicket win. The king totally mauled the Indian attack in an innings he has referred to as the best of his career.

The excitement never reached fever pitch until near the end of the last day. But it only got there because of what transpired up until then, including the totally washed out fourth day. It was those four days that made the fifth evening the great spectacle it turned out to be; it was those four days that provided the framework for the story to unfold the way it did. Before that last session the action was pedestrian. But then the casual trot became a full-bloodied gallop which gave those lucky enough to be witnesses a tale to recall for the rest of their years.

That is what you’ll get with Test cricket: a story, a novel perhaps. And not just any story either, but one often riddled with twists and turns and valleys and troughs and nuance. That is also what we will lose if Test cricket is made to die a death brought about by disinterest and neglect.

The Test game allows time for all kinds of narratives to emerge and play out, and it allows all kinds of strategies to be conceptualised, executed, and followed to their end. All three formats fit under the umbrella of cricket. Yet there are skills and challenges and quirks of the longer format that are mostly or totally absent in the game’s briefest format, the one that now seems poised to dominate.

This is not surprising. An activity scheduled for five days must, of necessity, be vastly different from one which lasts less than four hours. You still need to see the ball and hit it while batting, for example, but Test-match batting — even of the Bazball kind as practised by the England Test side — also requires patience, judicious shot-selection, and unyielding focus. If you open the innings in a T20 game and bat till the end, you might face, say, 60 deliveries. In Test cricket a batter would hope to face considerably more than 60 deliveries every time they walk to the wicket. Protecting your wicket then is much more the aim in Tests, and that calls for a totally different mindset.

Test-match batting is generally an examination of aptitude and application. By and large it involves making the right decision over and over and over again. In some sense it’s like being stuck in a wilderness and having to find and fight your way out, survival depending not only on strength and vigour, but also on adaptability, mental endurance, courage and awareness — knowing which plants are good for food and which are best left untouched, knowing that downstream is the more probable path back to civilisation and safety. You could, in the end, find yourself stranded despite being armed with all that knowledge and strength. But the ability to decipher where the pitfalls lie and avoiding them makes survival all the more likely and offers the best chance of reaching your goal.

On tour of Australia in 2004, Sachin Tendulkar decided to put away the cover drive in Sydney after falling to the stroke in Melbourne when he seemed set for a big score. Eighty-two runs in five innings were well below the standards he had set for himself, and he was determined to make things right. If shunning the cover drive was what he felt was needed, then that is what he would do. The result was 613 minutes at the crease for 241 runs without a single drive through the covers. Even as his partner, VVS Laxman, enchanted the gathering with drives through the covers and all around the park, Tendulkar remained resolute, never once departing from his pledge, though the temptation to do so must have been considerable.

We see then that there are different plots and subplots that run through most games. There are also conditions that vary from one day to the next — from one session to the next very often. A surface that starts out with preparation moisture, thus aiding seam bowlers, could become worn and dry and dusty in the game’s latter stages, enabling turn and treachery, thus aiding the spinners. Cracks in the surface sometimes develop or widen under intense sunshine to present batters with an issue of concern. Bowlers frequently tire under a heavy workload and energy-sapping heat, allowing the batter who stays the course an easier time at the crease.

Scheduled to be used for a minimum of 80 overs, the ball deteriorates: the seam becomes less proud; its surface becomes rougher and can, therefore, be nurtured to facilitate contrast and reverse swing. The new ball will bounce and seam more than the old ball and will likely rise more quickly off the pitch. Right-armers operating from round the wicket or left-armed bowlers often create a rough area outside the right-handed batters off-stump that can be exploited by an off-spinner, while the left-handed batter already must deal with the rough created by the right-handed bowler if they need to contend with a left-arm orthodox spinner or a leg-spinner.

Even seemingly insignificant events like a ball change can have a significant impact on a game: In 2006 in Auckland the West Indies were 138/0 chasing 290 for the win when Chris Gayle launched left-arm spinner Daniel Vettori on the roof. The ball could not have been retrieved at the time and so at just over 47 overs old it was replaced by one the bowlers found more helpful to their cause. The Caribbean side lost by 27 runs after everyone thought they were cruising to victory. Shane Bond, who captured five wickets in the innings explained what happened: “The turning point was Chris [Gayle] whacking the ball up on the roof and we got a new ball and it reversed a few overs later and we exploited it well.”

The vagaries of Tests make for a deeper, more fulfilling appreciation of the sport. Yes, T20 is more lucrative, it attracts larger crowds, but there is more than enough in the game’s longest format to suggest it should be preserved and grown. All-out attack by batters that often occurs in limited overs games can be spectacular and enthralling, but Tests offer that and more. It would be a shame if we lose Test cricket in the West Indies.

Garfield Robinson is a Jamaican living in the US who writes on cricket for a few Indian and English publications. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or garfield.v.robinson@gmail.com.