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| ith the ICC's latest plan, Test series between teams like New Zealand and Sri Lanka will receive interest from neutral spectators since the result will have an impact on their teams' standings in the points table |
Since it was first played in 1877, Test cricket has been a byword for conservatism. This image of a game impervious to shifting sands conceals how much has actually been altered: Tests have been scheduled over three, four, five, six or unlimited days, on uncovered or covered pitches; overs have been six or eight balls long, delivered by cricketers bowling underarm or overarm; the number of teams has risen from two to ten; and in recent years, the DRS and day-night games have been introduced. Evolution has been constant.
Yet perhaps none of these changes are as significant as the ones that could be ratified at the end of June. The introduction of two divisions - seven teams in Division One, and five, including two new Test nations, in Division Two, playing under a league system to determine promotion and relegation every two years - would give Test cricket a context and structure that it has always lacked.
Meritocracy would no longer be anathema to Test cricket. Any of the ICC's 105 members would have the opportunity to reach the pinnacle, based on their performances. Order would be created out of Test cricket's chaotic, disjointed and sometimes downright irrational scheduling. It would be the most radical move in the history of the Test game, and it is envisaged it will lead to Tests generating more interest and cash, safeguarding the longest format's future.
"Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it," Mark Twain once bemoaned. The same has long been true about "protecting the primacy of Test cricket": much talked about by administrators but seldom acted upon. Day-night Tests are welcome but don't address how to give Tests greater relevance. The idea of points across formats in a series, introduced by England this summer, is an attempt to create more context, but how is a series super if it does not count towards anything?
This time no one can accuse the ICC of modest tweaking while being oblivious to the fundamental issues Tests face, the administrative equivalent of debating the colour of the curtains while the house is burning down. Led by David Richardson, the ICC has come up with a plan that it believes can save Test cricket, and ensure it can peacefully coexist with T20.
Each team in Division One would play every other side home or away over a two-year cycle. Most of these would be three-match series - so nine Tests at home and nine away every two years, 18 in total. Each match and each series would be apportioned a certain number of points. It could be as simple as three points for a win in a match, and one for a draw, though the details are still being thrashed out. These points determine the overall standings. At the end of each two-year cycle - the first would begin after the 2019 World Cup and end in early 2021 - there would be a winner of Division One, effectively a winner of the World Test League, and the bottom side that would be relegated.
Unlike now, when the Test rankings have little integrity, and are fiendishly complicated, such a structure would be simple and easily understood, and build towards producing a clearly identifiable winner. Never again would we have a new No. 1 for bureaucratic reasons, as often happens when old results are discounted from the rankings every April and the Test mace changes hands.
Division Two would be structured similarly to Division One, but it would only include five teams, with each playing the other home or away, perhaps in two-Test series, amounting to eight Tests each every two years. The winner would automatically be promoted, while the side finishing second might have a playoff, against the team finishing sixth in Division One, to determine who would be in Division One for the next cycle.
The bottom team in Division Two would face a playoff with the top team in the Intercontinental Cup, which would remain a first-class competition. The I-Cup would be played by six countries - playing two matches at home every two years and two away, with the final round played out concurrently in the UAE - and the bottom side would also face relegation, probably after a playoff with the leading team in the World Cricket League structure below the I-Cup.
Aspects of this plan might sound familiar, and in many ways they are. Something similar was proposed by Rohan Sajdeh of the Boston Consulting Group in 2008 (which had been commissioned by Cricket Australia) but was rejected, partly because teams did not get enough freedom in the schedule to stage the most lucrative series. Two years ago Australia, England and India tried to introduce promotion and relegation, with eight teams playing Test cricket and the rest in the I-Cup. The only snag? The Big Three would be exempt from relegation.
That would not be the case this time. "If we end up in Division Two, it is our own fault, simple as that," ECB chairman Colin Graves recently said.
The attitude shift is not only explained by the change in personnel among the Big Three. It also owes to the essential pragmatism of what is being proposed. The structure would only occupy about five months a year, deliberately leaving gaps in the schedule for teams to organise extra matches, including against teams from different divisions.
The Ashes could remain a five-Test series played on its current cycle no matter what. If Australia and England were in the same division, then only three Tests would count towards the league standings. Or, less simply, each Test would be weighted to give the series the same overall points as a three-match series.
The freedom to organise extra matches means that relegation to Division Two need not be catastrophic, especially as the mandatory schedule in Division Two would be light. If India were in Division Two, they would only be compelled to play four home Tests every two years - a minuscule obligation set against the 13 Tests planned for their next home summer - which would leave them ample time to organise more attractive Tests.
Other countries in Division Two might also be able to arrange extra matches against Division One sides. If Bangladesh were in Division Two, teams could play a Test there as preparation for touring other countries in the subcontinent, just as they could play Ireland before touring England, or Zimbabwe before touring South Africa.
