How to get rid of draws in Test cricket, if we must

It’s been a while since I experienced the old familiar feeling of wishing Brian Lara would piss off.

Indeed, the great man retired ten years ago, and in the intervening time I think I’ve barely felt a powerful desire to tell Brian Lara to stick his head up his fundament at all. Maybe occasionally during a commentary stint, but not really, not like the old days.

In a way it’s quite cheering to once again want Lara to go away – makes me nostalgic for the good old days. Or rather, the bad old days: the days when Lara kept on walking out to bat, and then walking back again about a week later. He was a terrifying batsman when it was your team bowling to him.

But now he’s proving an irritant in an entirely new way, without a flowing cover drive or devastating swivel-pull in sight. His new thing is trying to ruin Test cricket, with the suggestion that draws be eliminated.

The idea of getting rid of draws is not a new one: plenty of people have suggested the game could be improved if they were cut out.

But unlike most of those people, there is some evidence that Brian Lara isn’t a cricket-hating imbecile.

After all the time he spent playing the game, you might assume that he has some affection for it, so maybe in this case the anti-draw push is motivated by something other than a wish to kill Test cricket stone-dead.

Nevertheless, there is a major flaw in the view that Test matches should “always have a result”: that being that they already bloody do. A Test can be won, a Test can be lost, a Test can be drawn, a Test can be tied. All of these are results, because that’s the way the game goes.

The other major flaw in Lara’s argument is that he simply recommends we “find a way where you structure the game… and come up with some formula that can bring a winner at the end of it”.

Well gee, thanks a bunch, Duckworth-Lewis. Tell us we need to get rid of draws and then don’t even supply a suggestion as to how that could be done? His statement is as essentially useless as his record-breaking run-scoring in a losing series against Sri Lanka.

So yet again, it falls to me, the Voice of the Cricketing Public, to take up the slack and do the hard policy work on behalf of a cricket legend.

As I’ve said, I am entirely of the view that draws are an essential part of Test cricket’s charm and must remain if the unique tension and diverse skillset of the long-form game are to remain undiminished.

But if icons insist on sticking their oar in and floating thought bubbles down the rapids, let’s at least have a robust debate based on solid, realistic proposals for ensuring there is always a winner in a Test. For example:

• The minimalist model: rules of the game stay the same in all respects except that in the event of a draw, the team with the most boundaries is awarded the win.
• The maximalist model: Test matches to be reduced from five days to half an hour, teams to be cut from eleven players to six, and rules of cricket to be amended to be rules of indoor soccer instead.
• The physical exertion model: if neither team can bowl the other out twice, players’ uniforms to be wrung out and whoever has produced the greatest volume of sweat over the five days is the winner.
• The puzzle model: In the event of a draw each team nominates its most intelligent member, who must compete to be the first to follow a series of cryptic clues to find and unlock a hidden treasure chest.
• The Jules Verne model: In the event of a draw, teams to embark on a race around the world.
• The Manhood Model: Team with the biggest bats is the winner.
• Super Over: Similar to the popular super-over concept in Twenty20, except that to retain the majesty of Test cricket, the winner will be the team that plays the greatest number of technically correct forward defensives.
• Toastmaster model: whichever captain gives the most gracious post-match speech is the winner.
• Timeless model: Tests to be played to a finish no matter how long.
• X-treme Timeless model: Tests to be played to a finish with no breaks between days for sleep.
• Predictive model: At the start of each test every player guesses how many times batsmen will offer no shot throughout the match. If the game ends in a draw, whichever player came the closest to the right answer claims the win for his team.
• Gladiator model: Tests to be played to the death.

Personally I think we should just keep draws, but feel free to have the discussion.