The problem with Test cricket is that Test matches between two poor teams is the lowest form of cricket that you can have at the professional level.
It has the status of Test cricket but the quality of cricket is basically club level, such as the ongoing series between Pakistan and Zimbabwe.
This is why it is a dying format - it is simply too long and boring attract new fans, and the vast majority of the existing fans find the format unwatchable unless it is played between two quality sides on result-oriented pitches.
Test cricket fluctuates between the greatest format and the worst format depending on who is playing who, and that inherit flaw within the structure of the format will lead to its extinction.
100%.
You can't expect people to seriously tune in and watch Pakistan vs Zimbabwe for 5 hours at a time.
On the other hand, The Ashes, or any other series involving top tier nations, is always a good contest and people can afford to set aside their time to watch good cricket.
Unfortunately, good cricket isn't being played in most parts of the world.
The only teams worth watching right now are England, India, and Australia. New Zealand are painful to watch overseas, but they hammer oppositions at home so I could have included them. South Africa are on a downwards spiral, and so are the West Indies. Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe are the nations struggling the most. Within all that mess, Pakistan fits in right next to South Africa being a team that is good enough to at least challenge a top team for a few sessions before crumbling away.
The point I will return to is that it is not even economically beneficial to play against bad teams, it gives fans no incentive to watch their team flatten another team that already lost the game the moment the series was announced. Teams like Australia, India, and England are very picky as to who they play and for how many games. They will entertain teams like SL, WI, BD for at max 2 match series, if any series at all. Against each other, they will play up to 5 test matches, solely because they make a lot of revenue.
People right now are trapped between thinking logically and being influenced by their emotions. Do I think that Zimbabwe deserve more cricket? Of course, there's no question about it. However, is there any incentive to play against them? No, it is not worth the time or the money, because they just aren't capable of producing cricket that can challenge the world's best.
Maybe in a few years ICC will have to come up with a mechanism to get big teams to play against smaller nations, most likely through the WTC. Even then, it won't help the likes of Zimbabwe.
My prediction is that in a few years, ICC will probably make a significant division between test playing nations. Either through the groups they are placed in, or through other means, but it will probably involve the top 4 playing against one another consistently (perhaps annually).
But the bottom line is that test cricket is dying because the rift between the very best and the others is too big to fill.
