Who needs T20 when test cricket is this exciting?

TEST cricket . . . Bloody hell.

Anyone who believes the five-day game is dying, trampled beneath the wheels of the Twenty20 revolution, received a rude awakening in Cape Town last week when England and South Africa staged a thrilling draw.

For the third time in eight Tests, England clung on with nine wickets down in their second innings to complete a great escape of epic prorportions.

It followed last year's get-out-of-jail acts at Cardiff and Centurion.

Without wishing to decry Twenty20, which provides a pleasant enough diversion on a warm summer's evening, there is nothing quite like a Test match to get the juices flowing.

Sure, you get the occasional duffer – the odd bore draw that leaves everyone cold.

But the majority of Tests nowadays produce a positive result and you can't beat Test cricket for nerve-shredding drama.

The reason for this is simple enough, for it is precisely because Tests last five days – as opposed to five hours – that they make for such riveting viewing.

Pit 11 against 11 over a five-hour period and the chances are it will be something of a lottery.

Give them several days to go at one another's throats, however, and there is time aplenty for the drama to develop.

Whereas Twenty20 amounts to little more than a glorified slog-fest, Test cricket throws up more vicissitudes than you can shake a stick at.

The balance of power can change hands several times over, whereas a Twenty20 contest is often won or lost in the blink of an eye.

Despite the global appeal of Twenty20, it is impossible to imagine it dominating the front and back pages a la the 2005 Ashes.

It could not possibly engender such levels of interest.

Back in 2005, the public's imagination was held captive because, day after day, month after month, no one had the foggiest idea what was going to happen next.

Each day was a glorious, gut-wrenching, rollercoaster ride.

What a pity cricket's administrators pay little more than lip service to the primacy of Test cricket.

Despite the vast resources available to the Board of Control for Cricket in India, for example, India have not staged a five-match Test series for 20 years.

Instead, the cricketing calendar is saturated with all manner of meaningless one-day internationals and Twenty20 internationals, which are no sooner played than forgotten again.

In the words of Scyld Berry of the Daily Telegraph: "If Achilles and Hector had been made to fight for only a few minutes, nobody would have bothered to remember."

Alas, we live not in an age of Achilles and Hector, but one positively saturated with dumbed-down entertainment.

One-day cricket has its place, but Test cricket remains the be-all and end-all.