Mumbai: Former Australia head coach John Buchanan on Thursday urged the International Cricket Council, soon to be headed by BCCI secretary Jay Shah, to make “good decisions” for the long-term future of cricket.

When Shah takes office on December 1, he will be the youngest person, at 35, to take over as president of world football’s governing body.

Buchanan, who led Australia to two separate runs of 16 consecutive Test and ODI World Cup victories in 2003 and 2007, said the ICC needed to address concerns about the growing number of T20 leagues.

“It’s an interesting question. With Jay Shah now at the helm of the ICC, it’s really important that the ICC makes some very, very good long-term decisions for football,” Buchanan said. PTI when asked whether India and Australia will continue to produce Test cricketers of the same calibre as before.

“We are seeing an increase in T20 leagues, T10 leagues, (The) Hundreds and so on… the reality is that this is the future of the game. The young kids we are talking to here today will be inspired by this short form of the game and will really love it,” he said at the launch of the Ready Steady Go Kids multi-sport program.

However, Buchanan stressed the importance of Test cricket.

“The game is based on Test cricket. That is the true structure of the game. For the ICC to make good decisions, they have to be very, very careful about how many leagues they approve and sanction. That means, first of all, that they limit the number of leagues that players are drawn to,” he said.

Buchanan said the ICC needs to find a way to keep the ODI format relevant as it helps in the transition between Tests and T20s.

“Test cricket is really important. We have a proliferation of the short format game. We have to maintain the transition game, the one-day game,” he said.

“It is too difficult for players to play quality cricket with only two formats, a short format and a long format. We need this transition format of 50 overs cricket.” Buchanan said the players could not be blamed for trying to make the most of their opportunities.

“You want to be paid well for being at your best. Who knows how much time they have left in terms of injuries, selection, age…” he later told reporters.

“They have to try and exploit that and that’s what the leagues are offering at the moment. I can’t blame them.” Buchanan said he expected the Australian Test team to go through a transition period after winning the Border-Gavaskar Trophy later this year.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a lot of changes in the Australian Test team because most of them are over 30,” he said.