Reports of the death of test cricket have, for some time, been greatly exaggerated, but last week saw the kind of death throes that remind us that such reports must one day – just as they were of Mark Twain – be accurate.

The sending of a second-tier team by South Africa to New Zealand to essentially tick an attendance box, while the top players stayed home for a T20 bash, was described by former Australian captain and cricketing great Steve Waugh as a ‘defining moment in the death of Test cricket’.

I would go further and call it a defining moment...