Former New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum believes that Test cricket is on the brink of extinction as not many teams can play it. McCullum’s comments come after the likes of Alex Hales and Adil Rashid announced their retirement from red-ball cricket.

The Kiwi, who plays for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League this season, stated that due to the change in society, people don’t have the time to watch five days’ worth of cricket.

"I firmly believe that test cricket won't be around in time, because there's only so many teams that can afford to play it."

"I'm also a realist that people are turning up and watching T20 not just at games but also on TV - society is changing, isn't it? People don't have four or five days to commit to Test cricket. They might watch the first session, and the last session on day five if it's tight, but they're not going to then you strip it back a level as well and you think domestically, how can teams around the world afford to even exist?"

Much akin to football, where clubs own the right of players, there seems to be a power shift in cricket, according to McCullum. The dashing right-handed batsman said that he sees a future where franchisees will own players and won’t allow them to play Test cricket for their nations.

"Long, long-term, I see a T20 franchise as owning players, and I don't see them releasing those players to play for their nation in a test match," McCullum said.

He then concluded by revealing his beliefs about the skill-level required in the two games.

"I don't buy that you need residual [test match] skills to be able to then transfer into T20. To me, they're played with the same instruments but they're completely separate games. I think once we do separate it even more, then the skill level of T20 cricket will go to a whole new level altogether."