World Test Championship: A move in the right or the wrong direction?
Test cricket is the original form of cricket. It's exactly what the name suggests, A Test. It's a test of patience, concentration, fitness - both mental and physical and a lot of other things. Sounds interesting right? Well, not so. One Test match goes on for 5 days, and that's where it suffers because people seem this sort of cricket "boring". There are many reasons behind it. One is T20 cricket. The shortest form of International cricket. A 3-4 hour match has a lot of crowd compared to the traditional Test cricket. The demand for Test cricket is lowering year on year and this isn't a good sign for cricket. The reason is there are still a lot of cricket purists who enjoy watching Test cricket.
To tackle this problem of decline in viewership of Test cricket, ICC has been struggling with coming up with solutions. There are talks over making Test cricket a 4 day affair. ICC has tried the day/night test too, but nothing seems to be working. They came up with an idea to bring competition like the World Cup in Tests too. That was the start to the ideation of the World Test Championship. ICC feels this will make Test cricket meaningful and gripping. It was first proposed in 2009 and after being cancelled two times, once in 2013 and 2017, finally the ICC World Test Championship is taking place from 2019 to 2021. Now that's here, let's see if it will actually improve the viewership or quality of Test cricket or not.
The first thing here is to compare the number of Test matches over the years. Are the number of test matches increasing or decreasing or staying constant? So let's consider the number of Test matches played between August of 2015 to July 2017; August of 2017 to July of 2019 and the test matches played as a part of World Test Championship from August 2019 to July 2021.
August 2015 to July 2017 - 93 Tests
August 2017 to July 2019 - 81 Tests (No tests from April to July due to IPL and World Cup)
ICC World Test Championship - 72 matches
These 72 matches are considering the top 9 teams with Test status out of 12 teams. Well, now 11 as Zimbabwe is banned by the ICC. If you consider two Test matches Afghanistan is playing against Bangladesh and West Indies, there are 74 matches. Year on year, the number of test matches are dropping. Does the ICC think that the supply of Test cricket is more than the demand? Or is ICC trying to globalise T20 cricket alone considering European nations have caught interest and ICC World Test Championship is just a gateway to make the Test fans happy? Well, only time will let us know about it. All we know is that Test matches are less in the World Test Championship.
The second argument is the point system. There are 27 bilateral series and irrespective of the number of matches, each series is worth 120 points. That means, a team winning one match out of a 2 match series is scoring a 60 where as a team winning a test match out of a 5 match series gets only 24. Looks fair on paper. However, recently Australia trumped England in the first Test of the Ashes in England. These days winning a test match overseas is a difficult rather almost close to impossible against top sides. Australia against all odds won the match but got only 24 points. On the other hand, Sri Lanka, they won a test match at home against New Zealand which is a relatively easier affair but got 60 points. I don't quite agree with this point system. There should be a bonus for the visiting team to beat the home team. Let's just say as this is the first edition, we all don't quite know as of now how this point system is going to play. Will it cause any injustice overall after the end of the bilateral series is to be seen.
The third and the last argument which many critics are raising voices is that not all teams play against each other. There are teams which are playing weaker sides all through the 2 year course. Also, not every team has a same set of bilateral series as others. For example, The Ashes consists of 5 test matches between England and Australia. It's considered the most intense and the most difficult series for any player. However, a match win gives 24 points, where as consider Sri Lanka who are playing five 2 match series and one 3 match series. It's easier for Sri Lanka to score points this way.
There are many arguments. However, making a championship and having to fight for something to be in the final at Lord's in the inaugural Test championship is a good motivation for teams. This could lead to a much better quality of cricket and as the points scoring and standing of teams become competitive, the viewership might just increase. It might bring the crowd back to traditional cricket.
My opinion is that as long as there is competition between bat and ball, Test cricket is not going away. We all saw the intense battle between Jofra Archer and Steve Smith at Lord's. This is rare to see in limited overs cricket. As long as the pitches are made to help the bowlers, the competition is even. Test cricket will pull crowd because it is intense and no format can match it. World Test Championship is a good attempt, however, as long as you give the bowlers something to work with unlike in limited overs, Test cricket is here to stay for a longer time
What do you guys feel? Let me know in the comment section
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