Cricinfo - Blogs - Rob's Lobs

All it requires is will, flexibility and a dollop of imagination. First, for reasons too many and obvious to mention, the Test table should be split into two six-team divisions with a couple of associate additions to thicken the lower tier: Australia, England, India, Pakistan, South Africa and Sri Lanka upstairs; Bangladesh, New Zealand, West Indies and (if we really must) Zimbabwe downstairs, reinforced by the Intercontinental Cup finalists.

The leading teams would be obliged to play home-and-away five-Test series against each other over a five-year period; the lesser lights could settle for three-match rubbers. In both cases, all teams would average 10 Tests a year, reducing wear and tear. At the end of every five-year period, the bottom two sides in the top flight would join the second division teams in a three-week knockout format to decide 1) which two gain/regain Test status for the next five years, and 2) which four qualify for the eight-team World Championship, which would feature quarter-finals, semi-finals and final over a three-week period. The trick would be to play games simultaneously. Neutral venues would add further spice. That said, in the interests of fairness and due reward, the two finals would be played on the soil of the division-leading teams.

Modesty ought to forbid, but the pros, I like to think, comfortably outweigh the cons. A programme of this ilk would bring Test cricket to two more nations. It would also leave oodles of scope for grubby activities such as naked profiteering - ideally an annual Champions League-style Twenty20 event – while satisfying the broadcasters’ lust for product. It would also breathe life anew into sport’s most necessary anachronism. So what if Ireland, say, enjoy an inspiring three weeks and wind up in the same division as Australia? This is a meritocracy we’re trying to create here. The worst thing that could happen is that the Wisden and Worrell Trophies would have to be put in mothballs until Allen Stanford’s investment bears fruit. Or England are relegated. It may be a closer-run thing than many imagine.

Besides, a quinquennial World Championship would be such a perverse hoot. Forget the Olympics and all those fervent copycats. Five years is both half a decade and the customary length of the post-Stalinist life plan – ie. a tad more meaningful than the length of a US Presidential term.

No good. A team can be almost wholly renewed over five years. And neutral venues won't cut it - Tests need a home side and tourists. I like the "two series, ten tests" rule and the two divisions with a play-off system, though. Even if it wouldn't take England too long to slip down to Division 2!

Now for the serious heresy. When the Ashes were invented, there were only two teams playing Test cricket. Let everyone play for them. Let Australia keep them until someone beats them (in a five-Test series) and so on. It works in yachting.

A new trophy for England-Australia would be needed - the Grace of Bradman, perhaps?

First of all, don't you mean, "Sanskrit to an Inuit"? Now coming to your scheme, I think its all nice and fancy: to the converted. Think about the empty stands during test matches in South Africa or New Zealand. What do they tell you? They still love cricket. They come in droves to the ODI's. So they are just not that much into test cricket. So any schemes to fix that? Remember: no patronage, no sport. Now come back to T20. Has it not been popular? Aren't young people coming to the grounds? How can you not allow that some of these youngsters may take up the sport and eventually find themselves appreciating test cricket. Does that sound outlandish? Well, it may work or it may not work, but the problem is still that the popularity of test cricket is dangerously dying away in countries that are needed for international test cricket to be able to survive.

I think you're underestimating the gap between the Test nations and the rest. Canada would get slaughtered by New Zealand, the West Indies, or Bangladesh in a Test match. While it would be wonderful if Ireland did well, it's very unlikely that they'd even beat Bangladesh - Test matches have a lot less luck involved that ODI's.

Cricket has a two-tier system - Test nations and non-Test nations. This is how it should stay.

Also, neutral Tests would be played in the deadest of atmospheres. There aren't that many locals anywhere who watch a cricket match not involving the home side. Look at the crowds in the neutral matches in triangular one-day tournaments.

My idea is a little bit different.
We can have all 9 test playing teams competing in home and away test matches over a period of two years. that will be 9 tests a year. And Australia can say plan their tour such that when they come to play india they also play bangladesh,pakistan and srilanka. Saves a lot of travel. And gives purpose to playing test matches. I mean if their is not a world cup, why should we play it for. Avoid useless tournaments like champions trophy and plan odi tournaments arround these tests.

I misread part of your piece as "the collected recordings of Little Jimmy Ormond"! Interesting how recent talk of burnout has all but vanished in the face of the oodles of money being waved around by the ICL and the IPL. "Slow Malcolm" (if you've heard Deep Purple's "Mary Long" you'll get the joke) could have used IPL to replace the Champions Trophy and many of the extraneous and overpriced 50 over ODIs with some kind of proper league format.

Will, flexibility and a dollop of imagination are things which Slow Malcolm lacks. Unless his Masters in the BCCI send him proposals to put in place...

Two divisions is a good idea. Saves messing about with this incomprehensible ICC rankings table. But the ICC have sold rights to that, it's the LG rankings. We may be stuck with that for however long the ICC signed the contract for.

I don't think Rob Steen appreciates the extent to which IPL/ICL/Stanford is changing the face of world cricket. It is not just Test match cricket which is being threatened; it is international cricket generally. If the current trend is allowed to continue, I don't think it will be too long before there is a World Twenty/20 Club Championship (with matches throughout the year)to which all of the best players will be attracted. If that were to happen, international cricket would probably be restricted to a bi-annual limited overs World Cup tournament. Recognise any similarities with football? That's the way its going, folks - whether we like it or not!

This has to be one of the crappiest ideas I've ever seen. First, can anyone name any other sport where NATIONAL teams are split into a promotion-relegation system at the highest form? The answer is none. The idea of a promotion-relegation system goes solidly against the purpose of teams representing nations equally on the world stage. There are also a couple of contradictions in this idea: 1. Rob Steen writes that there would be 12 teams in two divisions who would all presumably be "test" teams, but then goes on to write (emphasis added) "At the end of every five-year period, the bottom two sides in the top flight would join the second division teams in a three-week knockout format to decide 1) which two GAIN/REGAIN Test status for the next five years, and 2) which four qualify for the eight-team World Championship, which would feature quarter-finals, semi-finals and final over a three-week period. The trick would be to play games simultaneously.." (continued in a second post)

(continued from previous post)...so if all 12 teams were Test teams why on earth would the last 2 teams in the first division need to play in a tournament to keep or regain their test status? And why would teams in the second division need to play in order to gain test status? 2. Rob Steen doesn't seem to understand that sport competitions aren't about all about meritocracy as about equal participation (with meritocratic attributes). The meritocratic aspect of all international sports is that the best team wins a match, series or cup, not that some good team gets promoted only to be relegated later. And how is it meritocratic that the top 4 teams get automatic spots into a World Test Championship? Even Argentina, Italy and Brazil have to qualify for the FIFA World Cup (unless they are hosts). And the logistics of the 3-week World Test Championship look shaky at best (games played at neutral venues are "sure" to generate local interest) and what happens to abandoned matches? Or Rain?

A simplest lf method might be to have a league kinda system. We have 9 test playing nations (not considering ZIM), each team plays 16 tests, 8 home and 8 away against every other nation. Based on their all round performance in the league we can have the Test World Champion at the end of each year.

The only issue is already existing fixture commitments and TV rights based issue. In that manner we can say that the game is already screwed and the Test cricket which is the highest form of Cricket is bound to be affected thanks to T20 and ODI surplus.

Rob, I like the idea of a World Cup of test cricket though I prefer every four years since that would involve less waiting time; but it's all just too far beyond the capabilities of cricket. How would you effect a knockout test match? The tendency would be to create some dodgy mechanism to differentiate between two teams involved in a drawn match. The real solution would be to have indoor cricket stadiums to defeat rain and standardized non-deteriorating artificial pitches which offer a balance of maximum turn, speed and bounce as well as standardized non-deteriorating artificial fields. Then go back to the timeless test format and you would get a guaranteed result in almost every test match, failing which you could adopt the FA Cup "replay" format. I definitely like the idea of a World Cup, but cricket is in a state of paralysis and the arrival of a powerful BCCI only portends an even greater state of paralysis and confusion/chaos in the game. Cricket clearly has serious problems.

A better idea is to create more teams. Say 24 Test teams - 12 from India, couple each from Pakistan, Australia, South Africa and England and then Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Windies, Bangladesh. Divide those teams into 4 groups of 6 teams each. Teams in each group play other teams home and away 1 Test + 2 20/20 series on a yearly basis. That is 10 Tests and 20 T20's per team per year. At the end of the year, a designated 3 week period, top team from each group take part in a semis+finals for Test Championship and T20 Championship.

Why 12 teams from India? Because the market is big enough to handle that many teams. Of course, as with IPL, teams can have overseas players, there can be drafts every year etc.

I agree with Oliver, this idea would probably also end up destroying test cricket outside the top six.

Also, why the insistence on a short tournament? If you want a short tournament then go watch a short game like football or Twenty20. A 3-week tournament for a game with matches lasting 5 days is never going to work. Just imagine the fans. If I was an Australian fan your suggestion would have me flying to India for a week and then England the week after and finally returning to Australia for the final or going to South Africa for the final. Which fan is going to want to be on a different continent each week just to watch a Test World Cup? And since even Aussie fans are unlikely to do it, then all matches other than the final are going to have low turn-outs (the only ones watching would be those with time to kill and those wanting to see the possible opposition to their home team - not many fans like that).

Sounds like a wonderful idea in the sense that it opens a path for some new blood to try make it into the test world based on quantifiable merit, however the second tier Tests would probably suffer from the same problems in getting the attention and hence the big bucks that come from mainstream media. That the current tournaments that the ICC has set up for lower tier nations like the World cricket leagues and the Intercontinental Cups have been so comprehensively marginalised its virtually impossible get even match results for these tournaments means that it is very difficult for the teams involved to build the kind of fan base needed to be competitive. If this plan is to benefit anybody other than the six nations that would wind up in the top tier this attitude first and foremost has to change

I completely agree with suggested idea and completely disagree with suggested execution.

First off, let's all congratulate the Kiwis for rubbing our noses in our commonly shared "upstairs downstairs" theory.

Next, are you talking about a League or Cup? We already have the former. The latter, however, has the potential to be the one prize every decent cricketer covets because a glamorous awards night or an article on Cricinfo cannot beat holding a Test World Cup aloft in front of adoring fans having beaten the next best Test sides over a period of 3 weeks.

Imagine a tournament starting with a Quarter Finals... 8 Test nations simultaneously playing 4 matches on swinging Eng or SA pitches. We'll probably have Aus, Ind, SA and Eng/SL/Pak/NZ in the semis. Due to the way Tests are, the finals will almost always be contested by the two strongest sides. With Test producing results very often, a properly organised tournament can re-ignite public interest in Test cricket.

Apropos to the discussion on the format, I definitely agree with Rob's idea about a World Cup based on 8 teams qualifying for a straight knockout format. I slightly disagree with Rob's ideas regarding who would qualify for the World Cup. I think expansion of the number of Test teams must be stopped immediately as this process has become like the expansion of the European Union, or is it the other way around? Just as the European Union has expanded to include poor countries, that are essentially incompatible in the short term with the rich countries, and is now even willing to consider membership for Turkey which is a part of ASIA minor with a toehold across the Bosporus in Europe, clearly the ICC has given too many countries Test status. While I have some sympathy for the idea of stripping Zimbabwe of Test status because of their sporting incompetence, if people are going to insist on expanding the roster of Test nations, then perhaps the solution is to keep Zimbabwe in the fold.

How about this?
A three-test series can be played in a month. With a practice match or two thrown in. So let's divide the top 9 teams into 3 groups of 3 countries each. The first six months are the league phase. A country plays a home series and an away series with each of the other two countries in its group. That makes for 6 series'. The top teams from each group play for 1 to 3. The second-placed teams play for 4 to 6 and so on. This would again be played in exactly the same format. At the end of 12 months, we could rank the teams from 1-9. Each country would have played 4 series' at home and 4 away. And of course we could shoe-horn in some ODIs and T20s during the 4 months that they don't play.

just a small thought.Intercontinental Cup.a "Test"Style competition run over 1 year.apparently the ICC can send the Dutch to Namibia for a one off game in what is in effect the "2nd Division",but a "World Test Cup".this should be simple. 2 groups of 5 SF/F could easily be fitted into the English/Australian Summer(for example)but the calender is already overcrowded.heres a radical idea. stop playing hundreds of meaningless fixtures that nobody cares about & install a sensible schedule.the main problem of course is that the ICC don't seem to have the will to make the changes required to make this work.Cricket's problem is this is the 21st century & its structure is still in the 19th.it desparately needs a serious overhaul.

fromefrog:

Have to say that you're spot on regarding the ICC's governance issues. They truly are stuck in the 19th century.

In light of the above, I would like to propose something rather radical and unthinkable. The ICC should adopt an "United Nations" format. Get rid of all teams not represented directly in the United Nations, including England, West Indies, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Kosovo etcetera. Additionally, demote Zimbabwe to non-test status. This would reduce the number of test playing nations to seven. To that seven add a team from "The United Kingdom of Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the British Overseas Territories", including the British Virgin Islands etcetera, who currently play under the West Indies banner. This would raise the number of test teams back to eight from seven, all of whom would be full members of the United Nations. Then go for a straight knockout format Test Cricket World Cup starting with the quarter finals.