A World Test Championship can save the game
Series among top teams is only way to spice up format England poised to make changes for Lord’s decider
A fascinating experiment took place this time last year. Its implications seemed to pass unnoticed, because if the International Cricket Council had paid attention, this coming week of Test cricket – with England meeting West Indies at Lord’s on Thursday in the deciding match of their series, and Australia playing Bangladesh tomorrow – would be revitalising the oldest format. For it was a dress rehearsal for nothing less than a World Test Championship final.
To scroll back to the start of the last round of County Championship matches last September: Middlesex, Yorkshire and Somerset could all win the title. Somerset went on to win their last game, and were top of the table with half an hour of the season to go, on the brink of their first championship. But they would be overtaken by the winners of the Middlesex v Yorkshire game – if winners, indeed, there were.
Never had the cricket-following public in this country been captivated in such a way by two county matches played out simultaneously in the light of so much modern media: the Middlesex v Yorkshire game was on Sky, with live updates from Taunton, there was BBC radio commentary on both games, and a feast of live blogs and tweets.
The tension grew unbearable, until the climax arrived in the form of a hattrick by Toby Roland-Jones – who should have an even bigger role to play this week – which gave Middlesex their first title since 1993.
Everyone agrees Test cricket needs a context – and something more than the ICC rankings, which few can remember, culminating in a mace and a cheque for the winners each year.
Dividing the 12 Test-playing nations, which there will be next year when Afghanistan and Ireland join in, into two divisions has been propounded. However, this idea met a considerable objection last week. Two of the best Tests in this century – West Indies beating England at Headingley by five wickets after a brilliant run chase, and Bangladesh beating Australia in Dhaka by only 20 runs – would never have been staged.
The answer is surely the one which ICC proposed for the English season of 2013, and again for 2017 before shortterm interests intervened. There was to have been a World Test Championship staged in England in both of those summers, featuring the top four countries in the Test rankings; it was scrapped because of the fear that India would not be one of the four, and therefore broadcasters would have much smaller audiences and want their money back. Not that the official explanation was phrased like that: it was due to “logistical difficulties”, complicating issues and similar rubbish.
Last September’s climax to the county season told us that a World Test Championship could well be exquisitely thrilling. The mechanics are that the top four nations would play a Test against each other in the space of a month. Thus, for example, A would play B at, say, Old Trafford, while C would simultaneously play D at Edgbaston; then A would play C at the Oval while B play D at Headingley; and finally A would play D at Lord’s while B meet C at Trent Bridge.
All of the top four teams are liable to attract large followings in England. So long is daylight in June that the hours can be extended in the event of rain,
but if there is a draw, then the team leading on first innings would gain one point, with two for a victory.
The winners of this league would be the World Test Champions, demonstrably so. And the fact that these games are going on simultaneously, with five days of ratcheting tension in the full light of modern media, is the clincher: when the Triangular Test Tournament between England, Australia and South Africa was staged in England in 1912, the games were neither played simultaneously nor covered by TV, radio or Twitter.
What spice would be added to the two Tests this week if they had such a context? If Australia lose their second and last Test against Bangladesh they will drop to sixth in the rankings. Yet England would not be able to enjoy Australia’s discomfort to the full if they were to lose 2-1 to West Indies: they would still be third, but New Zealand would be breathing down their necks come March, when England next play them. And Australia, meanwhile, would have been all the more motivated to administer another 5-0 whitewash to England in the Ashes in trying to reach the last four.
In assembling their best XI to beat West Indies, England’s management will be tempted to bolster their batting by giving Tom Westley one more game at No3, and to bolster their spin bowling by giving Mason Crane a Test debut. But this is September, and the first time that England have played a Test at Lord’s so late in the season.
So, at this stage, the best option looks like a recall for Roland-Jones, whose steadiness was missed in both West Indies innings at Headingley. It might only be a temporary inconvenience for Joe Root to move up to No3 in place of Westley, or he might now feel he can do it permanently.
Dawid Malan would move up to his Middlesex position of four, and Ben Stokes to five, so that he evolves into a batsman who bowls the occasional spell of reverse-swing. Jonny Bairstow, at six, would no longer feel slighted by being down at seven, or Moeen Ali at No8. Roland-Jones would be England’s fourth seamer at the ground where last September he not only took 10 wickets and a hat-trick – but augured the future.
Test cricket needs a context – more than ICC rankings that few can remember