Have you enjoyed dethrone ceremony of Australia’s legacy?
Have you enjoyed dethrone ceremony of India’s Number 1 position?
Have you enjoyed England being number 1 test side at the moment?
Are you eagerly waiting for certain team who will dethrone England in few months? Aka South Africa?
Are you eagerly waiting for Australia 2.0?
Are you eagerly waiting for India Fightback to top 2.0?
Are you waiting for a massive upset coming by Pakistan, West Indies and surprise surprise Zimbabwe, who may dislodge bails of Top Test Team?
Are you optimistic about Sri Lanka the Test team post-murali?
If the answers for above questions are yes.
Then, where does Test Championship fit in?
ICC is planning to replace ca$h cow tournament ICC champions trophy (ODI series) with ICC Test Championship.
Are they doing this because they want to ‘save’ test cricket? No.
ICC Test championship is nothing more than making more Ca$h. I can say, It is basically another ICC World Cup or another T20 Domestic Tournament (IPL, FT20, Big Bash, etc.)
There is no difference between them. Here, ICC (mainly) and respective boards, who take part will make money, whereas, in T20 Toruny, hosting board and player’s board make money.
There is no early intention reveled by ICC that what are they planning to achieve here. I bet they will be happy if only ICC Test Championship go on and no bilateral team touring series in future. If that happens, say goodbye to traditional bilateral test series.
I am not sure if I would like that, because on one hand I can’t wait for revenge test series against England when India host them, on other hand, I am still sulking about Zak’s terrible fitness, and amount of tests India will play on top of IPL and Zillion ODIs.
Schedule is quite hefty for Indian players. As much as I like player to be fresh for IPL or ODI world cup that much I want my players to be fresh for Test Tournaments. So, I am not sure what is the ICC and other boards’ plan is.
What I can assume from FTP, that ICC’s plan is to just add another Test championship on top of hefty schedule, just like how they added T20 World Cup. (thanks to India, who won the first WC, against epic contender Pakistan)
(It’s ridiculous that IPL has gotten this much of scrutiny and people have started to think IPL = T20 cricket, and ignored FT20, ICC T20 World Cup, T20 Tourny in Pakistan, T20 Tourny in SA etc etc.)
So, Why would Test Championship may cause disharmony? I mean first thing first, if tournament is won by number 4 ranked test team, it just totally disturbs the team that is at the top of ICC ranking. Now, many people argue that ICC Ranking doesn’t make sense. Well, I don’t want to go in detail, but it is applied on all teams.
Another thing may happen that it will start to devalue or belittle or cause buffering in Bilateral Test Series.
Just like how media and many fans massively value Ashes (Australia vs England), people will start to value Test Championship so much that they will stop carrying about bilateral test series. What do you think will happen to tournament between not so strong test sides?
Now, fan like me will watch any kind of cricket, whatever is on! What about the fan wanted more of test tournament between particular nations? Now, tournament will go on, as per FTP, but what if players start preferring Test Championship more and don’t play or rest for normal bilateral tourny? What will we do then?
Let’s say they have no choice but to play then what about freshness of players for bilateral test tourny compare to Test Championship?
I expect disharmony is just waiting to happen. Either players will not be fresh or will break down for particular tournament due to load of tests. Also, bantering and preference of particular Test Tournament will always be there.
Imagine the scenario E.g. England who are at the top of ranking, losing to India, but media/fans will say, well, we are still at the top, no?
or another scenario, SA is at the top of ranking, but Australia beats them fair and square in one test ergo winning the semi-final but losing to India in the final, which team is the best test team then?!
It will be interesting to see how ICC, Media and Fans will give importance to test championship before or after the winner of the first test championship.
For me, test championship is nothing but to make more money but not to save test cricket, just like ICC T20 World Cup.
