On the 6 January, The Age, an Australian daily newspaper published in Melbourne, Victoria, reported that Jay Shah, the former secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), now the Chairman of the International Cricket Conference (ICC) is planning to meet later this month, with Cricket Australia (CA) Chairman Mike Baird, and England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) Chairman, Richard Thompson to explore the introduction of a two-tier format for the World Test Championship. Once again, the debate over the future of Test cricket, which was sharply ignited with proliferation of T20 franchise cricket (initiated by the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2008), is back on the agenda.
Although there is no current framework in place, speculation is rife as to how the 36 year old Shah, who became ICC Chairman on the First of December, 2024, plans to implement his proposal. One suggestion mooted is that an ideal two-tier system for the World Test Championship (WTC) would include relegation and promotion. Under such a structure, the team(s) finishing at the bottom of the top division at the conclusion of a WTC cycle would be relegated to the second tier, while the team(s) at the top of the the second division would be promoted to the top tier, creating a competitive framework.
Speculative reports doing the rounds indicate that India, Australia, England, South Africa, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and New Zealand will be slotted in the upper tier, while West Indies, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Ireland, and Zimbab-we will occupy the lower tier. It has also been reported that the new system will take effect after the current Future Tours Programme cycle ends in 2027.
This is not the first time that the ICC has dabbled with this concept. In 2016, a model was proposed where seven nations would compete in the top division and five in the second. Ironically, it was the BCCI, who along with the Bangladesh Cricket Board and Zimbabwe Cricket Board objected to the proposal, even as the boards of Australia, England, South Africa, New Zealand, Pakistan, and West Indies were in favour of it. Now, the proposal comes after a year of topsy-turvy results which made for an unusually exciting time in Test cricket around the world, and as South Africa (surprisingly not India nor England) prepares to face Australia in the WTC Final in June.
The bombshell has drawn a wide swathe of responses, ranging from utter shock to deep concern to weary acceptance. “I think it will be terrible for all those countries who work so hard to get to Test match status and now they’ll be playing among themselves in the lower section,” former West Indies Captain Sir Clive Lloyd was quoted as saying in the Trinidad Guardian.
Writing for the The Telegraph UK newspaper, former England captain Michael Vaughan cast his vote in favour of the proposal, penning,“I have been saying for a long time this is the way to keep Test cricket relevant by ensuring the best play the best as often as possible, and we get fewer mismatches.”
Former Indian coach Ravi Shastri also endorsed the prospect of two divisions, arguing that the biggest teams needed to play each other more often for the five-day format to survive.“When the best teams play, the toughest and best format of the game is still alive and thriving,” Shastri opined in a column in The Australian newspaper.“It was also a sound reminder to the ICC that the best should play the best for Test cricket to survive. I will say that there’s too much of a clutter otherwise.”
The doyen of the current crop of cricket scribes, The Telegraph’s Scyld Berry, was slightly more cautious of endorsing the idea.“Sorry chaps, cricket has already experimented with cramming more Ashes series into a tighter schedule – and it just does not work,” he wrote. “If the World Test Championship has a two-year cycle, let there be one Ashes series in England, or one in Australia, but never both. That would be the quickest way to kill Test cricket.” One thing is definite here, with so many sharply divided opinions on the matter, arriving at a consensus will be a difficult matter.
This can of worms – there are literally too many variables here – once opened cannot be readily resealed. If the ICC opts to bifurcate Test cricket, there are several questions which need to be addressed now before the new format comes into effect. At present, India, England and Australia – the Big Three – hold the reins of power, and hence oversee of the current distribution of the television and sponsorship fees If, at the culmination of the first cycle of the new system, one, or two, or all of the Big Three (heaven forbid) due to strange circumstances – inexplicable loss of form, bad luck, the weather, the emergence of four new super powers in the game – find themselves being demoted, will the ICC suddenly change its tune? Will they claim that the demands from the television networks – the source of the wealth and the inherent greed – dictate that they remain in the top tier regardless, forcing a reconfiguration of the programme, and, or, necessitating the modification of the (their) rules, or will they – just play it safe from now – include those abstract open-ended clauses in fine print to ensure that they protect themselves from ever being demoted?
What about reviews of the current distribution model of the revenue and sponsorship among the ICC Test playing Nations? Will the Big Three agree to reviews? The subject of Test records will spawn heated discussions as to how future records in a two tier system are be viewed. Will new records established in the lower tier be kept separately, or will an asterisk be applied to differentiate them from those of the upper tier? Will this new system evolve to whereby eventually just the Big Three are playing Test cricket? There numerous questions to answer here. The ICC should think long and hard about implementing any ambitious radical changes. One way or the other, the final decision on this bifurcation concept, a subtle consolidation of power in the long term, will have a severe impact on the future of Test cricket.