If you followed the Boxing Day Test match in Australia, you would have heard everything that’s wrong with Australian cricket a million times. Right from the lack of runs in Shield cricket over the last few years to how the focus on youth cricket has destroyed the robust club culture.

Unsurprisingly, the Big Bash League copped most of the blame for tampering with the techniques of Australian cricketers. It’s absolutely par for the course to blame T20 cricket for failures in Test cricket.

Success story: Virat Kohli's India are top of the charts in Test cricket. Credit:AP

We, in India, did that too. Right from the inception of the Indian Premier League, a lot of voices, including many former cricketers, feared for the worse - that it would ruin the development of players suited to play long-form cricket.

To be honest, I also started as a sceptic. I felt that while IPL would help nurture our fast bowlers and middle-order batsmen, it would affect the openers and spinners for Test cricket. T20 cricket is all about executing high-quality skill under immense pressure but the thing to note is that there are only certain skills that come to the fore. Fast bowlers become more accurate and middle order-batsmen become stronger and wiser but the demands from openers and spinners in the shortest format are radically opposite to what’s expected off them in Tests.