ICC Test Championship play-off

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I think it's pretty good. Adds value to test cricket again and every game will count for something.
 
Test championship is a really good idea, but reducing the number of teams in the wc is a disgrace, the icc have litrally shut the door on improving associate teams.
 
It does seem a big blow to the associates. They have got some great results in the World T20 in recent years and they seemed like they were finally getting competitive enough for the World Cup.
 
ICC needed to reduce the number of games... not the number of teams.

I've been an opposer to the Test Championship because of equality reasons. If the Ashes is to be kept, that means every series needs to be a five match competition. You can't have Australia play South Africa in three games, South Africa play England in four games, and England play Australia in five games, it's not fair on any of the teams involved. And I don't support reducing the number of games in an Ashes series to cater for it.

What I do agree with, though, is the structuring of the games. For example the way India and Australia just played is a disgrace, what could have been an absolutely classic series was far too short... four games would have been perfect. The haphazard organisation of series needs to be fixed, but I'm not sure a championship, in particular with a grand final, is a good idea.

Use the Sheffield Shield last year as an example. Victoria had absolute dominance the whole year and played off against Queensland in the final. What would everyone think if Queensland won that? They wouldn't have deserved it. The rankings could be swayed by a coin toss... literally who bats first and who doesn't. That shouldn't happen in Test cricket.
 
Cutting the amount of teams at the 50-over World Cup is a bit stupid, it really doesn't give the associate teams much motivation to try and qualify as the nine test teams plus Zimbabwe will likely make up the ten competing teams. I'd rather see the tournament have 12 sides for the 2015 edition.

16 teams for the Twenty20 World Cup also seems pretty stupid as well and looks to be too many for me.

With regards to the test championship Boris I would say that sides would play a similar amount of games over the entire period to make sure that some teams don't play too many and other don't play too little.
 
Ljp86 said:
With regards to the test championship Boris I would say that sides would play a similar amount of games over the entire period to make sure that some teams don't play too many and other don't play too little.
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Are 5 games against Bangladesh equivalent to 5 games against India, though? I agree with it if they get it to work and still maintain the traditional aspects of Test cricket, but with way the ICC like to do things for money's sake rather than cricket's sake, I'm not sure a good solution will ever come about.
 
A game against the top side will never be the same as a game against the bottom side, that theory applies for any side in any sporting competition. Unfortunately they can only award the same amount of points for a win against any side no matter what their ability is.

The only thing the ICC can do to combat this is to have each side play an even amount amount of matches over the period or award more points to teams who defeat sides ranked above them on the ladder however that might not seem fair as the top ranked sides can't earn max points for defeating a lower ranked opponent.
 
I see the only way of doing it would be as such:
- One home series and one away series against each side over a four year period.
- Each series being equal in length
- Points being awarded for matches won (so that way a drawn series still attracts points) and extra points being awarded to a series win
- The home series should be played as long as possible away from the corresponding away series. This is because over a four year period a team can change drastically, and a team that won at the start of the championship may not necessarily still win at the end of the championship against the corresponding team.

I don't want to get to the end of a long four years and have one team complaining that they had to play Australia or India in more matches than another team. Or that one series was only two Tests long, one was washed out and the second was drawn even though they had the stronger team, they walk away with no points, whereas a longer series they would have expressed dominance. I don't want to get to the end of the comp to feel like it was all luck of the draw and the English side that beat us in the Ashes was now a flop four years later but we wouldn't get to play them again.
 
As a person with Irish and Scottish heritage, it is a great shame to see that the ICC wants to cut back on the WC. Ireland, Scotland and Kenya all have a lot to offer in the game and shunting them back to the associate leagues wont do those players any good
 
I think it's a very poor attempt to boost interest in Test cricket, not sure it will work given how complicated the schedule is already.
 
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