Johan Botha

Combustible ... Johan Botha of the Thunder lights up the bails when trying to run out the Strikers' Chris Gayle. Photo: Getty Images

The British writer Hugo Williams tells a story about arriving for a public performance three hours late, after catching a train to the wrong town.

To his surprise, the audience had all waited. They had ''been able to control themselves, even enjoy themselves, while sitting there doing nothing''. But then, as soon as Williams began ''the difficult task of being worth waiting three hours for'', they started leaving. Three hours of waiting was fine; one minute of his performance was too much.

There's a parallel between Test and Twenty20 cricket here. A lot of the cricket in the four Test matches this season has been, frankly, pretty boring. Perth aside, the pitches have been sedated by a dry spring and have played too much in the batsmen's favour.

But the matches have ultimately been good ones, tense and closely fought and, as each narrative unfolded, packed with drama. Even if you had to wait for it, that wasn't too bad, because in Test cricket the spectator is able to let the story seep in ''while sitting there doing nothing''.

In the Big Bash, on the other hand, one three-minute over in which nothing happens is intolerable. By ''nothing'', I mean the ball hasn't been fetched from the seats and the stumps have not combusted.

The spectator is so keyed up by the noise, the fireworks and the six-hitting, the expectation of action is overwhelming. I took two nine-year-olds to the T20 international last year when David Warner hit his famous right-handed six.

The nine-year-olds, impressed by the shot, sat expecting a repeat. By the 10th over, they were asking when we could go home. One of the same boys, when taken to a Test match, had been perfectly happy to while away the day drifting in and out of the game. Seven hours of dreamboating was, in his judgment, the best day of his life, whereas three hours of T20 felt like forever.

Test cricket's great strength and weakness is its imperviousness to the spectator's immediate needs. It's a contest between nations, and you can watch it - or, in the case of Hobart, not - but regardless of your attendance, Test cricket is an important event.

There is a grandeur to its indifference. The short forms of cricket, kowtowing to what they think spectators want, are chasing our approval, and sometimes the harder they chase the less satisfying they are. The ''flat period'' of 50-over cricket, the dreaded 15-40-over lull - what is a Power Play anyway? - has a corresponding flat period in T20, which is any over when six singles are scored.

It hasn't been surprising to see the Big Bash's audiences decline. I'm not one of the deserters. I enjoy the Big Bash. But I'm watching it for different reasons from Test cricket. It peddles, and still provides, novelty. I wanted to watch Adam Zampa bowling leg-spin, Kane Richardson's all-round talent, and other newcomers such as Chris Tremain and Hilton Cartwright.

At the other end of the scale, Shane Warne, Lasith Malinga, Chris Gayle and Muttiah Muralitharan are always novel. Then there's the national interest question: seeing how Shaun Marsh is going, or Nathan Coulter-Nile, or Moises Henriques. I realise I'm watching the Big Bash as one of my friends does. ''It's like golf,'' he says. ''I'll turn it on to watch a particular player. I don't care about the result.''

The Big Bash is still striving to connect audiences with teams, but in the meantime there is high interest in individuals. For instance, I'll turn it on whenever Aaron Finch is batting. Since seeing him belt Queensland for 150 in a one-day match earlier this season, I'm a firm Finch fan. It's puzzling that a guy who is averaging 99.4 in one-day cricket and 188 in T20, with astonishing strike rates and an orthodox style - as the commentators say, he plays ''real cricket shots'' - is virtually unable to lay his mighty bat on a red ball.

This Sheffield Shield season for Victoria, Finch's average is 11.33. Last season it was 17.84. A cricketer with that much talent must be the long-term solution for Australia's Test middle order. As with Warner before he was picked for Test cricket, the selectors are just waiting for Finch to throw them anything, just a few Sheffield Shield runs, to give them an excuse. But so far he has been mysteriously incapable.

Perhaps, as with Warner, short-form cricket will be Finch's fast track. It's happened before: Damien Martyn's second Test career for Australia came after his rehabilitation through one-day cricket. Finch will play for Australia this season, in T20 and ODIs, and if he delivers the way Warner did, the question will arise.

A final point on that: Warner

convinced the selectors that he was a batsman of substance with his 211 in 446 minutes for Greg Chappell's Australia A team against Zimbabwe in Harare last year. His opening partner was Finch - who scored 122 in 292 minutes. It was Finch's only first-class innings of the tour. Sloggers indeed. The idea of T20 cricket producing ''specialists'' may be the biggest furphy of all. Good cricketers are good cricketers. The Big Bash could end up not being an entertaining diversion in itself, but a testing lab for higher things.