The last time
this was experimented in was in 1912, before the advent of television and
internet or even floodlights and before there was money pouring into cricket.
The Triangular Test Series played between England, Australia and South Africa,
with England winning the series was largely deemed a failure owing to the
highly uncompetitive matches and failure to draw crowds, partly due to a much
weaker Australian side.
However, right
now the talk amongst the cricketing fraternity does seem to be inculcating an
interest in test cricket, how to solve the problem of declining viewership,
lack of crowds and sometimes, players’ lack of interest (for instance – Lasith
Malinga retired from Test Cricket to focus more on being a T20 mercenary). Many believe that the day night test could
bring back the charm of test cricket, including former England captain Andrew
Strauss, who said the format could keep the format ‘alive and vibrant’.
So far, ICC has
announced their intentions to host a World Test Championship and repeatedly, as
the date draws nearer, the tournament gets cancelled, for some reason or the
other (financial problems is the norm), both in 2013 and 2017 and instead, back
in 2013, a redundant ODI tournament was revived. The 20 over format needed a
world tournament, it had one, the fifty over version already had it, since the
70s and there was no point in carrying on another 50 over tournament.
However, 2013
had the revival and considering it was India who won, there was a lot of
interest generated in the tournament and thus, the Champions Trophy lingering
on became imminent. On the other hand, the chance of a World Test Championship
has also become bleak; while the stands remain largely empty during the early
hours even on countries. This is not a phenomenon restricted to nations where
there are other popular sports such as England, Australia or New Zealand, but
also in countries where cricket is the primary sport such as Sri Lanka and
India.
Constraints of a World Test Championship
Format
The format and
the manner of conducting a World Test Championship has been largely undecided,
if there is to be some sort of a round robin with each side playing everyone
else at least once, there are twelve test playing nations at present (including
Ireland and Afghanistan); the number of matches come to a staggering 66 –
meaning a minimum of 330 days; a tournament going for a whole year. There could
be leagues or others worked out but the duration is always going to be a
constraint.
At present, the
proposal seems to be that the top four sides over a four year period will play
a tournament but that is something that has not yet been tested and the present
situation seems to be that the tournament scheduled for the year 2021 also
stands cancelled.
Thus, it is
evident that it is difficult to decide on a format that would be interesting
and also be good on the time factor.
T20 Leagues
With T20 leagues
throughout the year at some part of the world and a lot of players turning out
to prefer the lucrative deals over playing test cricket, working around the
leagues for a schedule would be very difficult or; the latter is an even more
difficult task of retaining the key players. It so happens that most nations
have stopped scheduling bilateral series during the time of the Indian Premier
League these days, let alone a World Test Championship.
No guaranteed
success
There is no
guarantee that this experiment could be a success, perhaps it could be a repeat
of 1912 and considering that this would be marketed at such a massive scale
should such a tournament be scheduled, a flop show would be a disaster for test
cricket as a whole and its failure could even mark the beginning of the end.
Thus, one has to thoroughly research viewer interest before taking such a
decision.
Thus, it seems
very evident that at the moment, a World Test Championship has a lot of
problems, however, an idea that has not been tried, since 1912 has been a
triangular test series and sometimes, adding more diversity to a series could
help.
For instance,
the upcoming West Indies versus England series seems to be a huge quality
mismatch, but at the same time, an experience of playing against a top side is
perhaps what the young Caribbean sides need; but the cost of that experience is
going to be one sided matches and total lack of interest from the viewers. The
same could be said of the recently concluded series between Sri Lanka and India
wherein there wasn’t much of a competition between the two sides though this
experience could help the Lankan side in the future.
So, to add some
flavour to these sort of series, the 1912 experiment could be revived, wherein
three test sides play a series, even if we have a simple format where each team
plays each other once – and the best two would reach the final – it comes to a
total of just four tests, which is similar to most bilateral series. Of course,
there is the issue of determining the best two, especially when there is a
possibility of matches going for a draw (especially in the final); in which
case the entire debate of whether a points system should be in place comes in
but I believe this is something easier to come to a consensus to, than a World
Test Championship.
A World Test
Championship is of course a great idea and if pulled off well, it would be a
feather in the cap for the glory of test cricket but at present, it is a lot
more pragmatic to go for it step by step. Australia have often conducted
tri-series, I hope in future, some cricket board takes up the idea of a
triangular test series.
Just to
conclude, had it been a triangular series, with a side like South Africa (who
had just toured England) along with West Indies, the press would not have
declared England as the winners of the series, even before the same was
conducted.
Have a nice day,
Andy
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