With Australia claiming the number one Test ranking the question has to be asked – is the Australian cricket team really that good or are the rest of the Test sides around the world that bad?
Australia have reached the number one position without the services of two of their best young fast bowlers in Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc. While the Aussies have a good young developing cricket team, I am sure even coach Darren Lehman would agree that there is room for improvement.
With the majority of the Australian side quite young it’s likely this team will play together for another five or six years, which could result in another dominant era for Australian cricket.
But are the current Test rankings a true reflection of where the teams stand?
England, regarded by many as the true number one team in the world after recent series wins over Australia and South Africa, sit fifth on the ICC ladder. It makes the rankings look absurd and irrelevant.
Never before has an idea transformed a sport the way T20 has for cricket. In this country alone the popularity and crowds of the ever growing Big Bash League are rivalled only by the country’s biggest code the AFL.
The money the Indian Premier League offers players could not have been imagined 10 years ago and the T20 World Cup in India later this year will be the biggest cricket tournament in the history of the game.
All this while Test cricket dies a slow death. Australia and England are the only two countries in the world to attract anything resembling reasonable crowds to Test cricket these days. Some countries and players are simply not interested in playing the longer form of the game, and the imagination and initiative that made T20 cricket so successful has to be brought to the Test arena.
Day-night Tests are a good start but the real problems for Test cricket lie with the irregular scheduling, uncompetitive matches, and meaningless series. While all cricketers will say that every game you play for your country means something, that isn’t the case for the fans watching. We simply are not interested in uncompetitive and meaningless Test matches.
Test cricket is in a fight with the ever growing list of entertainment options people have these days and without futuristic thinking and tough, unpopular decisions Test cricket will get left behind.
One of the first things to be considered is the future of Zimbabwe and Bangladesh playing Test cricket. While growing cricket in these regions is important maybe it is best done through one-day and T20 cricket.
Both of these nations have shown very little improvement over a long period of time at Test level, and it’s hard to mount a case that either of them will ever be able to compete with the top teams like Australia and England.
The next thing should be making some sort of season for the remaining eight Test teams to bring relevance to all Test series played. A way this could be done is by dividing the eight teams into two divisions of four with the top four ranked sides at the moment making up Division 1 and the bottom four starting in Division 2.
Division 1 teams could play each other in a home-and-away format season over the course of two or three years with the top two playing off in a ‘grand final series’.
Division 2 could play a similar season, with the team that finishes on top of the ladder promoted to the top division and the bottom ranked team in Division 1 relegated.
A big part of making this work is the prize money involved. There has to be an incentive for teams to finish as high up the ladder as possible to keep all matches relevant. Money needs to be taken from the ever growing pool that T20 is bringing to the game and injected into the Test format. It is the only way it can survive.
Under this current ranking system, Australia and England wouldn’t play each other in the first season of the new-look Test roster. This isn’t ideal, but hoping the Ashes will save Test cricket is a little naïve.
This sort of radical plan will always meet resistance from all of cricket’s different fractions, who are looking after their own interests. They may say it can’t be done because of scheduling, money or any other excuse. Just like life, cricket is full of people who oppose change and have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future.
Make no mistake, Test cricket will look a lot different in 10 years’ time, whether it is for better or worse is a question only the future can answer.
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