DUBAI           -           Four-day Test matches could become mandatory as part of the World Test Championship from 2023, with the ICC's cricket committee likely to formally consider the change in 2020 amid widespread discussions among member boards about how to reduce numerous pressure points in the global cricket calendar for the future. However, the world's cricketers stand as the most likely source of opposition to the change, with many viewing the step up from four-day first-class games to five-day Tests as a critical point of difference at the top end of the long-form game. The ICC's increasing demand for event windows, the proliferation of domestic T20 leagues, the BCCI's demands for its own sizeable share of bilateral calendar space, and the costs of staging Test series are all factors contributing to the move, which would shave off a significant amount of time from the calendar for the 2023 to 2031 cycle. Tony Irish, the head of the international players' body FICA, said that while four-day Tests would provide a solution to many of the game's growing problems around squeezing cricket's three formats into the global calendar, such a move could not be made without an integrated approach to scheduling and a far more "coherent" structure for the international game. "There are two aspects to four-day Tests, the cricket aspect and the scheduling aspect," Irish told ESPNcricinfo. "It would take pressure off the schedule but our concern would be that the ad hoc way the schedule currently works they would simply plug in more cricket into the gaps. If introduced it therefore has to be part of a more coherent structure.”