"Tassie spent years in the sporting wilderness. We fought hard for every major sporting event we've ever held. But we got complacent. And now if we don't turn up, we'll lose Test Match cricket. Forever."

Those words are lifted from the script for a promotional video generated by Cricket Tasmania in the lead up to this Friday's Test Match.

The message is as unmistakable as it is parochial. The very definition of hanging a lantern on one's problems.

When Cricket Australia boss James Sutherland visited the Apple Isle last month his words - by design - lacked subtlety.

He ended up on the back page under the headline of "Use it or lose it" when citing the difficulty of giving Hobart international matches if its attendances continued to decline.

There's no confusing that intent; it was shock therapy to jolt crowds into action; to counter against any apathy about Australia playing a fledgling (to be kind) West Indies outfit.

A back page story in last Friday's Fairfax papers, which reported that as few as 10,000 people were expected to attend the Test, turned up the pressure dial yet another notch.

It prompted the Premier, Will Hodgman, to issue a plea: "We don't want to lose it," he said.

The ABC spoke to the two men who have more riding on the success of this week than most. David Johnston is the chief executive of Cricket Tasmania and Tony Harrison has recently retired from the board after 22 years, the last eight as chairman.

"The pressure is on," acknowledges Johnston, the weekend before the first Test in Hobart for three years. He's not wrong. The State Government knows it. The Tasmanian community knows it.

But their competition knows it too.

Canberra looms as viable alternative venue

Cricket ACT has unapologetically campaigned for Manuka Oval to become a regular Test venue. ( Getty Images: Mark Kolbe )

With Canberra craving a maiden Test, Cricket ACT has spied Hobart as the weakest link and is unapologetic in its desire to become Australia's "sixth" international red-ball venue next summer when Pakistan and South Africa visit for three Tests each.

Harrison retired as chairman in the middle of this year in order to retain his position on the Cricket Australia board as part of national governance reforms that necessitates serving in one capacity or the other. As a national director, his role is now to serve the game's national interest, but his allegiance is clear.

While remaining confident of success this week - a crowd north of 25,000 through the Test identified by management - Harrison's clearly frustrated that his beloved state is in this situation to begin with. And when it comes to the tenor of Canberra's bid, he's downright mad.

"I have said the same thing to people," he says of Sutherland's warning. "The strongest message we can send to Cricket Australia that we want international cricket is to turn up in numbers. It is simple as that.

"Cricket Tasmania has tapped into this 'use it or lose it', but I don't think they have any alternative because the momentum had been built up by external forces. So what do you do?"

Hobart's woes are traceable to the last time a Test was played at Bellerive; when Sri Lanka toured in 2012 the total crowd fell short of 20,000.

Media coverage of the empty stands and sparse hill was unkind.

In response, administrators pinned the modest figure on a 'perfect storm' of unfavourable circumstances: the game was scheduled the week before Christmas, rain was a feature through the weekend and $43 was the cheapest entry for an adult (a family pass set you back $113.)

At the time, Harrison panned the critics, stating that if they do not like Tasmania they shouldn't come. He also said there was "no threat at all" that Hobart could lose their Test on this basis.

But when only 12,177 attended Australia's World Cup fixture against Scotland in March, another fixture undermined by rain, it once again fed the perception that the crowd simply does not show up in Hobart.

In turn, three years on, Harrison is decidedly less bolshie, conscious of the importance of what happens next.

Can they retain the Test? "I would hope so," he says with caution. "But that's still a decision that Cricket Australia has to make. Obviously what happens this week coming will have an impact on that."

Harrison's irritation is understandable. Under his leadership, the $15 million Ricky Ponting Stand swelled Bellerive's capacity to 20,000.

The ground now regularly hosts AFL football, and the Hobart Hurricanes Big Bash League franchise is flying.

"I am frustrated that this debate is on and Tasmania hasn't been given an opportunity to demonstrate that [the new grandstand] was a worthwhile investment and people will come and support it," Harrison says.

Hobart thriving on tourist buzz

Perhaps the most perplexing element of the debate is the fact Tasmania has never been more attractive to external dollars.

This is best illustrated by local authorities hoping to attract 1.5 million tourists per year by 2020 - triple the state's population.

Lonely Planet, the world's foremost travel guide, gonged Hobart as one of their top ten cities in 2013 and last year listed Tasmania as fourth in their regions of the world to visit.

So when Canberra comes up in conversation, both Johnston and Harrison grizzle. While acknowledging the capital's successful hosting of World Cup fixtures, there is resentment towards the way they have prosecuted their case.

Hobart Test crowds Stats: Ric Finlay Opposition Date Crowd SL 16/12/1989 29,122 NZ 26/11/1993 13,220 Pak 17/11/1995 18,068 NZ 27/11/1997 12,396 Pak 18/11/1999 20,754 NZ 22/11/2001 16,471 WI 17/11/2005 29,186 SL 16/11/2007 27,634 Pak 14/01/2010 27,812 NZ 9/12/2011 19,725 SL 14/12/2012 19,572

"I have read comments like 'we deserve the test, Hobart doesn't' kind of thing, I don't think that's helpful," Harrison argues.

"We are going through a process in Australian Cricket at the moment called One Team, which is the states and Cricket Australia all acting as one, and what has disturbed me most out of Canberra is that it is hardly 'one team' behaviour.

"We (CA) spent a lot of money and effort getting this one team thing going, and here instantly we have an issue... I think that is disappointing."

Instructively, Harrison points out that as one of six full members of Cricket Australia, "one of the six owners", which he says can't be ignored. "ACT Cricket is not," he quickly adds.

The antipathy is advanced by further concerns that Canberra has earned support in some quarters of CA because they are willing to get their chequebook out.

"I do know that they have made financial contribution to playing one day international cricket there, so I suspect that may be the case (for a Test Match), but it hasn't been confirmed to me," Harrison explains.

"There are certainly people in Cricket Australia management who don't necessarily look at it from a cricket perspective; they look at it from the dollars and cents perspective. But that's why we have a board of directors."

Clearly, Tasmania's advocates will not be giving up without a fight.

Also resonating with Harrison is data that shows ACT to have the nation's highest average weekly earnings, while Tasmania has the least.

"The workers of Tasmania are competing with the fat cat bureaucrats in Canberra who have the highest disposable income in Australia," he asserts.

Hopes slashed ticket prices will encourage spectators

Big Bash team the Hobart Hurricanes have proved a hit in Tasmania. ( Getty Images: Scott Barbour )

CA's decision to reduce ticket prices by a third for adults to $25 - the cheapest Test entry in the country - reflects an understanding of those economic realities, with a higher proportion of Tasmanians reliant on fixed incomes and government payments.

The price slash is doubly welcome when considering that the competition for that limited discretionary income now includes three AFL games a year and four home Hobart Hurricanes fixtures at Bellerive.

When rattling through the host of theories for why the Hobart Test hasn't drawn higher numbers, prominent is the belief that culturally Tasmanians don't decide whether they will come until the day on account of notoriously volatile weather.

While the commercial arm of Cricket Tasmania suggests this is evolving with the experience of the BBL, the risk of rain scuttling the very best plans remains ever present.

What would help is a sense of continuity in developing a habit of going when a Test is in town. It is another popular critique that stands to reason.

"In the other capitals they know there is a Test match every year whereas there hasn't been one in Hobart for three years. So there isn't the culture, people aren't used to it," Harrison explains.

Compounding this issue, Hobart is invariably assigned Tests from the secondary pool of international opponents. Even when it commanded a Test every other year from 1993 through to 2001 it was always against the side adjudged the less attractive off the summer offerings.

In 11 Test matches at Bellerive held its first in 1989, none have featured England, South Africa or India. It is no different now - the West Indies is objectively in worse shape now than in living memory.

Johnston confirms that they had hoped to host New Zealand and pitched Hobart as the inaugural day-night Test venue this summer, falling short to Adelaide. In terms of pure cricket, this stands as Bellerive's hardest sell yet.

Even so, this negative discussion of the Caribbean visitors riles Harrison, especially when it comes from those who he believes should have a better understanding of cricket's commercial realities.

"The thing that has distressed me most is the talking down of the West Indies, which sends a very poor message to the Tasmanian public. I've been very disappointed by the comments of former cricketers who have made a lot of money out of cricket," he laments.

In taking stock: no one can doubt administrators' efforts to control what they can.

While they cannot supplant a Tasmanian superstar into the Australian side, change the opposition or the weather overhead, they have reduced entry, increased awareness and will bus in over 2,000 students over the first two days.

But will it be enough?

"I wish I knew the answer, I wish I could say 'yeah, there'll be 25,000-30,000 people and all this will go away'," Harrison concludes with caution.

"I just hope they do turn up."