DESPERATELY hoping that the second phase of their ICC Champions Trophy will be much more compelling than the first, the full members of the ICC will meet in Pakistan next month to discuss means of relieving the congested programme of international cricket and of preserving the integrity of Test matches by reducing the number of one-sided series. I am not sure that they are prepared to be radical enough.
Three of the five options to be considered at the meeting in Lahore on October 15 and 16, after the ICC’s thorough review of its Future Tours Programme (FTP), would involve limiting the two weakest “top ten” countries, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, to playing Test matches at home only over a period of four, five or six years. Also on the table for discussion — binding decisions are unlikely before June — are the continued programme involving all ten Test countries in home and away series over five years, and an extension of that programme to allow an extra year for it to be played, thus reducing the number of Tests and one-day internationals in a given year.
Players’ representatives have told the ICC that they have no objection to the theoretical diet of 15 Tests and 30 one-day internationals per country per year, so long as they can be better spread and back-to-back Tests can be avoided. The evidence so far is that they cannot.
The radical solution may therefore have to be a two-tier Test championship, with promotion and relegation. That idea was rejected by the chief executives of the Test nations in Monaco last week. It would, however, be one effective answer to the problem of one-sided matches that has been so embarrassingly exposed by the early matches of the ICC tournament in England.
All that would be needed is for the Test ratings table to shed the bottom two nations as soon as any scheduled series have been played and then to grade the remaining eight on the basis of the result of every Test match. Unofficially, a league structure already exists and it is being used to initiate the “Super Series” between the leading nation, Australia, and the rest of the world in October next year. If the programme were to become less congested, that idea, bound to be attractive commercially and to spectators, would have greater justification.
Advertisement
In practice, a large enough majority of the ten full members is unlikely to vote for the possibility of a relegation that would reduce the finances of a relegated country for at least four years. Full Test nations who had no legal problems, for example, received $11 million (about £6.1 million) each from the last World Cup, whereas associate members receive only £200,000 a year. That sort of differential would be a strong incentive to get back to the top group. Meanwhile, a second tier, initially led by Kenya, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, would vie for promotion by 2010, by extending the new Intercontinental Cup, a series of regional three-day matches of 105 overs a day. The four regional winners will meet in the United Arab Emirates in mid-November. Scotland and Canada have qualified and the other competitors will come from Kenya/Namibia/Uganda (Africa) and Nepal/Malaysia/UAE (Asia).
The spur of possible promotion would be a logical consequence of the work that is being done by the ICC to strengthen the sport worldwide. In June, China became one of the 92 ICC members. In Vanuatu, formerly the New Hebrides, there has been an 850 per cent increase in players since 2000 and 4,000 men, only 25 per cent of them expatriates, play in a 14-club league in Port Vila, the capital. This has intrinsic merit, but there is no harm in offering international competition for those who can build a sufficient infrastructure of native players.
It took only 25 years for Sri Lanka, through regular international competition, to develop a tradition and passion for the game to the point where the outclassed also-rans of the first World Cup became the champions of the sixth. For nations with a far shallower cricketing pedigree, such as Kenya, plagued by administrative factions, and Zimbabwe in its present straitened circumstances, the journey will be tougher still. In Bangladesh, where cricket is the main sport, there is more hope.
By returning to eight nations playing regular Test cricket against each other at home and away, establishing a second tier playing four or five-day internationals from which one country would be promoted every four years and replacing the bottom team from the only official Test cricket championship, the ICC could solve the overburdening of the best players, preserve the integrity of Test cricket and provide a means of advancement for the rest.