“I am in West Indies and the first class cricket here is almost gone,” Ravichandran Ashwin insists cricketers can’t develop without strong first class structure

The Indian off spinner Ravichandran Ashwin who, apart from showing his skills on the ground, also takes a keen interest in voicing his opinion on the important issues in the game, has said that he disagrees with Ravi Shastri’s opinion that test cricket should be limited only to a few countries.

The former Indian head coach Ravi Shastri had recently said on Sky Sports that playing test cricket is not feasible for the smaller countries because the cost of organizing test match cricket is very high and the returns in terms of revenue are not that high.

But, according to Ravichandran Ashwin, who was speaking about the issue on his YouTube channel, a country can’t produce quality cricketers on a consistent basis without having a strong first class structure and the first class structure in a country can only be strengthened if there is a prospect of playing test cricket for the budding players.

“How will players be interested in first class cricket without prospect of test cricket?” asks Ravichandran Ashwin

Using Ireland as an example, Ashwin says if Ireland doesn’t get the opportunity to play test cricket, how will their players take any interest in the first class structure of the country and if they don’t do so, how can their development as a cricketer happen?

Ravichandran Ashwin also revealed that he has observed on the West Indies tour this time around that the first-class cricket in the region is on a steep decline and there are a lot of T20 competitions being organized now.

West Indies, which used to be one of the strongest teams in the world in test cricket at one point of time, has now seemed to have become a T20 specialist side. They still deliver a few positive results in test cricket at home from time to time, but not too many quality test cricketers have emerged out of the West Indies domestic set-up in the last few years.