Adam Gilchrist says players would dump Tests and succumb to the lure of T20 if IPL does not get a window in the ICC calendar.

In London, to deliver the MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture, the former Australia wicket-keeper said he would advice the administrators to embrace the shortest format of the game and create a window for IPL to stop elite players from turning their back on Test cricket and taking the Twenty20 plunge.

"We've very much got to be prepared for that. I don't think it should be a shock when it does happen or if it does happen," Gilchrist was quoted as saying by 'The Guardian'.

"In an administrative sense we've got to get the planning and scheduling right. The players are crying out to say they want a window for the IPL.

"Ultimately I hope that cricketers don't have to make a choice. If we can acknowledge that Twenty20 is here, I hope that players won't be put in that situation," added the left-hander, who led lowly Deccan Chargers to the title triumph in IPL II in South Africa.

Gilchrist did not doubt Test cricket's primacy but he insisted Twenty20 was the future.

"It's a dangerous person that ignores it (Twenty20). It's here. I heard John Buchanan say recently that cricketers of the future may well have to learn to adapt from the short version to the long version of the game. As long as the game's been played, it's always been the other way. That may well be the case," he said.

"I still want international cricket to be the most important cricket. I still want Test cricket to survive. To me it is the greatest game of cricket. But cricket can mutate into many different forms without losing the basic onstitution of what it's about. It can provide different things to different people," he added.