The Roar Forum: Cricket Test Championship

good point about the draw and stacking the side with batsmen althogh i think the only side that would sink to such extremes are the Australians and they probably would be the higher ranked side anyway,

Vinay, Thanks for your comments and I share your position that ultimately our views have far more in common than not. The key points here are to ensure that the youngsters of today, become tomorrow's guardians of tradition. In that I concur that all lovers of cricket must do their bit to ensure these traditions are passed from one generation to the next. I agree wholeheartedly that there must be approachable forms of the game to attract younger viewers. The fact that I (or anyone) is not a fan of abbreviated forms does not mean they don't have their place, particularly in this dimension. I guess ultimately my position is that we need to encourage younger viewers to "graduate" into the longer forms with all of the elements that go with it and limit the extent to which we change our flagship product of 133 years standing to be closer to these shorter forms and the purpose they are serving. It sounds like we would have a very robust and ultimately fruitful conversation on this and many other topics in cricket! Cheers ...

Thanks Vinay, very generous. My email address is already public, write to deggles [at] csoft.net. Cheers.

rugbyguy,for a quick (i won't say fast) bowler you can certainly think! Some good points there and a contentious one in the case of a draw.. I don't like that because the lower ranked team may just stack their side with batsmen and not even attempt a win. But if the pitches are prepared where the bat and ball are equal 5 days is plenty for a result. On pitches we are not calling for uniformity as in the military march. Uniform bounce and (which is difficult in India but it can be made better as has been proved in Mohali and Eden Gardens) and a minimum cover of grass on the first morning. We had this famously in Nagpur in India and Ganguly was furious. Good post,rugbyguy.

damn that advanced hair must be brilliant, Martin Crowe looks at least 20 years younger in that photo ;)

Martin Crowe is on the right track i beleive but just like his cricket-max creation i feel this one needs to be refined into something a bit less extreme. I am all in favour of having extra days available in case of bad weather, theres nothing more annoying than a great test ending in a non-result because it started to rain on the final afternoon, I dont see the point in making a test a 6 day contest when 5 is plenty of time for a team to win the match. thats why its a test you have to both score runs and take twenty wickets in order to win, 5 days is plenty. i mean why stop at 6?, if you want to go down that road why not just keep going untill both sides have batted twice ? No thanks. To win a test you must have balance. score as many runs as you think you need but at the same time leave as much time as required to bowl the opposition out. Leave yourself too little time and the opportunity to win the match is lost. Yes i like to see a result but in a test match i beleive victory must be earned by a combination of good batting, good bowling and also good strategy. remove the timeframe and the need for strategy dissapears. 5 days is plenty. If it rains by all means add the lost day on, if you cant force a victory in 5 days you dont deserve it. Day/Night matches work in the short form, why not tests? In a test it would be a lot more even. In the shorter forms often one team has a distinct advantage when batting or bowling first, conditions usually are vastly different at night, One team inevitably draws the short straw by having to bat in more difficult conditions, in a test both teams would get their turn batting in both day and night conditions. Surely this has got to provide a fairer contest. Personally i think T20 is a Novelty, great for TV to fit into a neat 3hr schedule and so great for revenue gathering. but i get sick of it quickly, I love the strategy of the long game, the pressure and suspense that builds in a test can never be reproduced in twenty overs. If it were up to me T20 would be left to the IPL and the world cup with maybe one game per tour just for a bit of fun, the first T20 between AUS and NZ was great fun, a real carnival atmoshpere the NZ team wore fancy dress, Gilly had a mic and gave amusing commentry from behind the stumps, Vettori bowled pace, Fleming bowled left arm spin in a mocking imitation of Vettori's action, it was pure entertainment. It makes sense that Crowe Favours T20 over 50 overs because the early form of T20, Cricket-Max was afterall his creation. If you already have home advantage and the match is drawn then surely the away side should progress, they have the harder job trying to win away from home, the home side is also the superior ranked team so they should be expected to win. Imagine bangaladesh drawing with Australia in Sydney, I can garentee that the Aus media and fans would consider it a loss, and Bangaladesh would celebrate as though they had won, why not put them through? Uniform pitch's are a pipe dream sorry, have you ever known two pitches sitting side by side on the same feild to be uniform? similar maybe but never the same, how can we expect pitches around the world to be the same, the grass that grows on the subcontinent, would die in an english winter, the grass on the basin reserve cant handle the heat of an african summer, then theres soil, humidity im no groundsmen but i know that its unrealistic to think we can have uniform pitch's even in the same country. The pitch is the same for both teams so who cares. Maybe one day we will have a factory someplace making and shippng drop in pitches to send out across the globe but untill then players just have to adjust to the surface they get on the day. It wouldn't hurt for the icc to come up with some kind of standard preperation methods and school all the worlds groundsmen, but still conditions are so varied it wouldn't be practical. what next uniform humidty and cloud cover?

Huchoman,I concur with your sentiments and you are a kindred spirit. But to understand the younger generation we have to engage with them in an inclusive manner. Traditions and culture are passed down by parents and we all have to introspect and see if we are doing our bit to pass this on. Children will not read books if their parents do not read themselves. The first step is to get the young interested and if this comes through the shorter forms so be it. Test Cricket cannot be meaningful to the young unless it is presented to them as being worthy of investing so much time. If we are to interest them longterm then cricket must address the over rates,prices of tickets and merchandise,and above all bring the contest alive. The limit of two bouncers in Tests takes away the element of surprise.In many ways the UDRS slows down the game and while I am for it it needs to be speeded up. The lunch break of 40 minutes is too long. Pitches have to have spice on the first morning. Leave some of the grass on. We cannot address the young from an elitist position. If it takes a Test Championship to attract the young we must trial it. Maybe every year will be an overkill. Two year cycles may be more the go. I am flexible on this. Night Test cricket is another new dimension and will throw up a new set of variables. It must be embraced. We must not stagnate for want of trying.

Russ,you should send this to the ICC. You can get my email details from Zac and I will give you some email id's to send it to. I don't like putting these details on the pos.

Vinay, Brett, thanks. I think different rules apply to individual sports. They have an order of magnitude more contestants, and therefore can play more world championships without devaluing the prize - something I feel happens with yearly team competitions (the Tri-nations or Davis cup, for example). Fans of team sports are well accustomed to quadrennial competition, and a regional championship would serve to focus the off-years. If anything, cricket needs fewer competitions, not more, particularly when you add the one-day competitions into the cycle. This issue has been rumbling along for years now, and I read through hundreds of forums and blogs to get a feel for what people are in favour of. Inevitably, compromises are necessary however: expansion of the test pool conflicts with regular playing schedules; maximising the number of competitive games conflicts with giving all teams the financial and playing benefits of playing top sides; a compact championship conflicts with playing it out via a full length series; maintaining historic marquee series conflicts with putting every game into a championship context; and so on. In case you missed it, the fully argued manifesto goes into greater depth with these problems. As important as television is, they need to be a better ally than they are for proper competition. There is a tendency for tv execs to want to scoop the cream off a competition and either ignore the rest. A cream-only cake is not so tasty though, and if the answer lay in what tv asks for, we'd already be living in the best of all possible cricket worlds. Brett, I haven't, no. Who would you recommend?

Russ, this is outstanding work that you've put into your plan. I hope you've sent it onto relevant people...

Perhaps this comes in the realms of impossibility, nor do I claim to be original. But why not devote three weeks every year to stage a Test Championship? No other cricket that time. Select one country, England or Australia or India or whoever. For example, No. 1 ranked nation plays no. 8 in Adelaide. No. 2 meets no. 7 in Perth. No. 3 faces no. 6 in Hobart and no. 4 plays no. 5 in Brisbane. Then come two semi-finals in Sydney and Melbourne. Final in Melbourne. Five day Tests, 100 overs a day. In case of a draw, team leading on first innings to go further. There should be some bonus points as was in the Sheffield Shield few decades ago. An extra day to be granted in case it rains heavily. First week will finish the KO rounds. Second week the semis. And the Final in the third week.

Russ,this is a thesis you have presented and the detail is commendable. My question would be : Will fans want to wait four years to know who is the Test champion.I think sports fans are now conditioned to seeing a champion every year. Tennis has its majors culminating in a 8 man Masters at seasons end. Golf's fifth major of the year is a 32 man play off to find the Champion. This is largely dictated to by TV Broadcasters and they wield a large influence in "seducing" viewers. I recommend people see the link to the model you have made.

Tony,Test Cricket cannot take itself for granted. It must be sensitive to changing needs and evolve. Civilisation is about evolution. We cannot remain static. I don't want to change the rules. But the context must be valid and the contest must mean something. I don't have all the answers but to remain inactive is to court disaster.

If Crowe's proposal helps/re-inforces the status of Test cricket as the pre-eminent form of the game, then go for it. While many of us don't need a knock out format to appreciate Test cricket (watching Mohammad Amir or Ishant Sharma trouble Ricky Ponting is good enough for me), if it can help keep the swinging voters interested then it sounds like a goer. A pure delight watching Crowe bat.

Dave1,only for one dayers. In fact Mohali also has one of the bounciest (no misprint) pitches in India.But for the ODI's they roll it to death. Generally speaking the tradition of Test cricket is foreign to many of the 12-20 year olds.1983,when India won the world cup changed the thinking and those born thereabouts have grown up in the 90's with a diet full of the one day variety.Ditto the 1996 World Cup won by Sri lanka. Those born in the noughties will have little regard for Tests. Considering the 1.2 billion people and that over 40 % are under 15(I may be slightly out) unless Test Cricket is made relevant to these segments we may end up with Tests between the original three countries. I am trying to look to 2050,even though I won't be around. And I agree Ireland should be playing Bangladesh in at least 3 day games if not five day games.

Vinay, You will not get a more ardent supporter of Test cricket than myself. In general, the whole concept of limited overs cricket is one I've never really enjoyed, regardless of format. My point is, why do we need to manufacture another tournament, another trophy, when particularly those of us who are supporters of the longer form of the game are typically the ones who rail most strongly against the manufactured nature of the shorter form of the game and all its apparatus? Test cricket is exactly that ... a test of all elements of a team's and an individual's skill. While upsets are unlikely in a Test match, they obviously occur from time to time. Upsets in a series are far less common. For this reason, to attempt to distil a Test cricket world championship into a series of one-off matches with all the vagueries one-off matches present is folly. Personally I don't need an inter-continental tournament to enjoy Test cricket and have a pretty good idea of who the best teams in the world are. The whole concept (even in current format) is designed to distil all the intricacies of Test cricket that can take a lifetime to learn into a simple list and presentation ceremony designed to fulfil the requirements of a 60 second soundbite on the evening news. We should be proud of the traditions of Test cricket and attempt to introduce new generations of supporters to joys, its foibles and its history. We shouldn't be ashamed that it does fit neatly into a shrink wrapped box. As guardians of cricket around the world is is encumbent on us to protect the game in all its forms, but perhaps no more so than in the time honoured traditions of Test cricket.

Ireland should be playing test cricket against at least Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe should be playing Bangladesh

Yes they do have to make grounds spectator-friendly. But the crowds were big for the world championship series against South Africa and the World championship game against Sri Lanka as well as the previous series against England. Mohli is where Tendulkar broke the record and has only held 9 tests in its history .............has it ever had big crowds?

Crowe's ideals are good, but the implementation is sorely lacking. In Crowe's defence, Atherton made the argument that any future test championship must conform to the FTP - even if it has yet to be agreed upon. It is a bizarre argument, given the greatest complaint about test cricket currently is that it lacks context, with the machinations of the FTP being the primary cause. That said, it is a very limp proposal. A mere 7 games to decide a champion: why must we have one every year? Why, if games are scheduled on the run, must the series be limited to a single game? It is a frightful loss of nerve on the part of the games' thinkers to corral the FTP and create a miniscule knockout competition to serve as a championship. Logistically too, it looks unworkable: how can NZ and England play contemporaneous home games, which is a requirement if they are seeded top? If England and NZ were the first two seeds then you'd play their first round in April (at the earliest), the second semi-final (of NZ) in October (again, very early), and the final (in England) when? The following April is the next available date, unless you play games in winter. On the matter of getting a result. Cricket has a fairly well established manner for getting a result: enforce a compulsory declaration after 220 overs (totalled over both innings), where the winner has the most runs. Very few teams bat that amount of time, and fewer still when the need to score quickly reaches an imperative. Carry a 6th day as a reserve only. I agree with Vinay's comments about bringing associate teams forward, but understand why people wouldn't want them in a championship event. But again, other sports have found workable methods around this problem. The simple solution is to have stages/qualifiers, and carry the event over a couple of years - if we played a test championship 2 years from 4, that leaves the other 2 years for the Ashes etc., the best of both worlds! My preference, expressed at length elsewhere, but summarised in picture here: http://idlesummers.com/images/cricket/testchampionship.png, is to begin with 18 teams (the last 8 having qualified in the previous year). Whittle them down to a top six in a qualifying year (my preference is for three regional championships - north, south, asia - which would give even mismatched matches some bite). And then play a 6 team high quality test championship over 12 months: 2 groups of 3, playing 3-test series home and away for points. The top qualifier from each group to play a final in Sept/Oct. The 7-12th (13-18th) teams could play a second (third)-tier championship, meaning each stage of the championship provides achievable targets for both the very best, and the weaker teams. Not every team gets to play every other every few years, but one of the forgotten joys of watching cricket, for me, is to encounter unfamiliar players and teams, and that ideal just isn't possible if cricket is genuine about expanding its frontiers.

Dave1,Test Cricket is big in India but not at the grounds. See the following quote from the President of the Punjab Cricket Assoc. which runs the Mohali cricket ground:"If you can watch Test-match cricket for five days in the air-conditioned comfort of your own home, here you spend two hours getting into the stadium, going through the police," Bindra said. "The TRP ratings [for Tests] are very high, but it is essential to have people at the ground. We have to make our grounds spectator-friendly. We have been short-changing the public [in most Indian grounds] so far, the public will start short-changing us unless we improve." Tendulkar passed Lara's record here with barely 2000 at the grounds. Dave1,the crowds for ODI's and T20 are fantastic.