Test Championship, oneday league get ICC’s approval
REFORMS Executive Board of the world body also approves fourday Tests on an experimental basis
The International Cricket Council unveiled a longawaited, nine-nation Test championship Friday in a bid to preservethefive-dayformat’sstatus following the rapid growth of Twenty20.
The Test league was among a raft of reforms agreed at an ICC board meeting in Auckland, includingrevampingtheone-day international schedule and trialling four-day Tests.
“Our priority was to develop (a) structure that gave context and meaning across international cricket and particularly in the Test arena,” ICC chief David Richardson said in a statement.
The Test league will start in 2019 and see nine teams play six series over two years -- three home and three away. It will culminateinafinalbetweenthetwo top teams at Lord’s.
The ICC has argued for years that a Test championship is needed to boost the format’s popularityascrowdsandTVviewers flock to the fast-paced,big-hitting Twenty20 version of the game.
It first appointed a committee to examine the concept back in 1998. But squabbling over formats,andfearsthatsomenations willbedisadvantaged,havetwice stymiedeffortstolaunchaleague structure since 2010.
“Bringing context to bilateral cricketisnotanewchallenge,but this is the first time a genuine solutionhasbeenagreedon,”ICC chairman Shashank Manohar said.
Theninenationsinthecompetition areAustralia, Bangladesh, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and West Indies. Cricket Australia chief James Sutherland called it “a really significant moment in international cricket history”. “It’s a tremendous step forward. The ICC and member countries have made a strong statement about international cricketandhowwewanttomake sure it remains at the forefront of the three forms of the game.”
THIRD-TIMELUCKY?
The ICC will hope it’s a case of third time lucky for the Test championshipaftertwoprevious attempts failed without a ball being bowled in anger.
A version was supposed to begin in 2013 but was scrapped because existing commercial arrangementsmeanttheICCwas obliged to stage the one-day Champions Trophy instead.
Then plans for a June 2017 launch were scuppered when some of the game’s powerbrokers, including India, objected to a proposed two-tier league system,sayingsmallerteamswould be disadvantaged.
Therewasalsoareportedlack ofinterestfromtelevisioncompa- nies. A recent innovation designed to reverse the trend is theintroductionofday-nightTest matches.
The Auckland meeting also agreed to experiment with fourday Tests, withSouthAfricaand Zimbabwe set to trial the first in December. Richardson emphasised that the shorter Test matcheswereonlybeingtrialled and their results would not be part of new Test championship.
The ICC will also establish a 13-nation one-day international league starting in 2020, with results counting towards World Cup qualification. It argued that the league structure would give addedcontexttoTestandODIfixtures, rather than the current system of bilateral series which have little bearing on other teams.
THE ICC WILL ALSO ESTABLISH A 13NATION ODI LEAGUE STARTING IN 2020, WITH RESULTS COUNTING TOWARDS WORLD CUP QUALIFICATION.