Nine Test teams to contest world championship
International cricket will finally have a Test world championship and a separate league for one-day cricket after the International Cricket Council ended years of false starts by agreeing a new structure.
A nine-team Test championship, including England, contested over two years, will be played from 2019, with a final at Lord’s in 2021. The finer details, such as fixtures and the points system, are still to be decided, but teams will play six series over a two-year period, with three at home and three away.
The top two finishers will contest the final as the old rankings system is dumped. The ICC also gave the go-ahead for four-day Tests, although these will be played outside the championship, which will remain at five days.
“Bringing context to bilateral cricket is not a new challenge, but this is the first time a genuine solution has been agreed on,” said Shashank Manohar, the ICC chairman. “This means fans around the world can enjoy international cricket knowing every game counts and, in the case of the ODI league, it counts towards qualification to the ICC Cricket World Cup.”
A 13-team one-day league will start in 2020 and be used as qualifi- cation for the World Cup. The 12 full member nations – recently bolstered by Ireland and Afghanistan – plus the winner of the World Cricket League will play four home and four away series, comprising three matches, with the top 10 teams qualifying for the 2023 World Cup.
The unwieldy five-match oneday series, such as the one England play at home against Australia next summer, is now a thing of the past.
The ICC has come close many times to establishing a Test world championship. Previous attempts have floundered due to a lack of interest from broadcasters, but the rise of Twenty20 domestic leagues and the way they have squeezed Test cricket has forced through change. A two-division format featuring relegation and promotion was rejected.
The experiment with four-day Tests will begin on Boxing Day when South Africa play Zimbabwe. Ireland and Afghanistan, the newest Test nations, will initially play over four days. Ireland are expected to host Pakistan next May in their inaugural Test.
England will also experiment with the four-day format outside series against the bigger nations and have led the way at ICC level in pushing for the change. Playing conditions for four-day Tests will be drawn up over the next month.
“Four-day Tests will provide the new Test-playing countries with more opportunities to play the longer version of the game against more experienced opponents, which, in turn, will help them to hone their skills and close the gap with the top nine ranked teams,” said Dave Richardson, the chief executive of the ICC.
“The playing structures have been worked on ever since I can remember, trying to find a way of bringing more context and meaning to bilateral cricket over and above a ranking system and a series win. It is a very important decision for cricket. Across all formats, series will have more context and hopefully more value. The primacy of international cricket will be sustained going forward.”
The summer of 2020 will be one of great change. The England and Wales Cricket Board will launch its new Twenty20 competition and the number of Tests will be cut from seven to six.
The fixture list is unlikely to be finalised before the next round of major matches are allocated to the county grounds.