This week cricket lovers everywhere have been enthralled by the World Test Championship final at Lord’s in London.

Entering this morning’s fourth day of the scheduled five-day game, underdogs South Africa are on target to complete a famous victory over Australia.

Given instinctive human preference for the underdog it should come as no surprise that most ‘neutrals’ are actually in South Africa’s corner.

In this case, though, knowledgeable cricket watchers believe a victory for South Africa will redound to the benefit of traditional Test cricket and the wider red-ball format, increasingly under threat outside of the “Big Three” — India, England, and Australia.

Economics is at the heart of the matter. Enabled especially by cash-rich television and allied audiovisuals, top cricket-playing countries are able to reward top-flight professionals with lucrative contracts, binding them to international duties.

It’s much more difficult for less-endowed cricket boards, including South Africa — with West Indies close to the bottom of the economic pile among full-member nations of the International Cricket Council (ICC).

The situation is perhaps best captured by the extraordinary reality that Trinidadian Mr Nicholas Pooran, who this week retired
from international cricket at age 29, has played only five first-class (four-day red-ball) games over his career.

That’s despite Mr Pooran being easily among the most talented batsmen to have emerged from the Caribbean over the last decade and more.

A standout at Under-19 level 11 years ago, Mr Pooran subsequently recovered from a career-threatening motor vehicle accident and focused on moneyed, white-ball leagues globally.

News reports say Mr Pooran may have earned about US$2.5 million in the most recent Indian Premier League (IPL) season.

We now hear that Mr Pooran, like former all-format West Indies Captain Mr Jason Holder — currently in Ireland with the West Indies Twenty20 team — will be among the captains in the 2025 United States Major League Cricket.

That franchise tournament, which started this week, clashes directly with the upcoming Australian all-format tour of the Caribbean.

Obviously, Cricket West Indies (CWI) and other ICC full-member boards outside of the Big Three can’t match cash offers from franchise leagues increasingly crowding out international cricket.

Hence the comment from West Indies all-format Coach Mr Darren Sammy that he expects others to follow Mr Pooran’s footsteps.

What future then for 148-year-old Test cricket, which earns multiple times less for players and individual administrative boards, compared to fast-paced, white-ball formats?

A saving grace is that most top players appear to still view Test cricket as the pinnacle, such as Jamaica’s Mr Brandon King, who has kept faith with the red-ball format, amid his white-ball commitments.

Mr King has now been rewarded with a place in the West Indies Test squad to face Australia.

Against a backdrop of talk of a tiered Test match system with top nations playing among themselves, West Indies pulled off an absolute stunner early last year by beating mighty Australia at Brisbane.

Should South Africa beat Australia this morning at Lord’s, the cricket world will be standing and cheering. There will be renewed enthusiasm that Test cricket, as we know it, is not
dead.

Imagine, then, if over the next few weeks West Indies were to achieve another stunner — even in just one Test — against Australia.

We contend it’s not a sin to dream.