Embracing change
To Test cricket again, then, and a conversation almost as old the game itself: the state it’s in, what’s gone wrong, and how to fix it. Only two decades after the very first Test, newspapers were already publishing leaders on the health of the sport and letters recommending remedies. In the 1890s the hot topic seems to have been what The Times described as “a preponderance of batting” causing too many draws, which were, in turn, putting spectators off the game. “Under its present conditions,” Wisden noted in 1900, cricket “is in the very direst peril of degenerating from the finest of all summer games into an exhibition of dullness and weariness.” Mooted solutions included abolishing boundaries, bringing in a fourth stump, and narrowing the bat.
In the Times, one correspondent proposed doing away with draws altogether, with the team that scored the most runs-per-wicket being the winner. Thirty years later, “dull cricket” was once again the great complaint. In the Daily Telegraph, a suggestion that “an extra be added to the total for every ball scored off, and one deducted for every ball not scored off”. Wisden wanted to tinker with the lbw law, bring in bigger stumps, and ban groundsmen from using liquid manure. A decade later the Telegraph was it again. First, matches should begin on Sundays; second, “batsmen’s average scoring speeds should be published”; and third, cricket should think about bringing in promotion and relegation.
So it goes, on and on, through the 1960s – limit them to one ball an innings suggested Jim Swanton; bring in a 65-over limit on the innings, argued Ossie Wheatley; drop Ken Barrington, demanded one Ida Jamieson – and beyond. The arguments may have had a different substance, but always a similar tenor: the game is in peril, something must be done. Point being, it sometimes feels like part of the appeal of Test cricket lies in grumbling that it’s not what it once was, that our discussions about how to improve it are as much a part of following the sport as our speculation about what the captain should do at the toss or whether the bowler needs a short leg.
As Woody Allen put it, “I am always certain that I’ve come down with something life threatening”. Allen rejected the idea that he was a hypochondriac, insisting he was, instead, an alarmist. “There is a fundamental difference. I don’t experience imaginary maladies – my maladies are real. What distinguishes my hysteria is that at the appearance of the mildest symptom, let’s say chapped lips, I instantly leap to the conclusion that the chapped lips indicate a brain tumour.” And as Jarrod Kimber wrote in his Test Cricket: The Unauthorised Biography, Test cricket can seem like the “Woody Allen of sports, permanently on the couch, analysing itself”.
Well, after seeking second, third, and fourth opinions, the consensus now seems to be that something is seriously wrong, that it is time for Test cricket to undergo major surgery to rejuvenate the flagging viewing figures, and, just as important, persuade the best players that it is worth persisting with. It will all be up for discussion in Edinburgh this week, when the delegates gather for the ICC’s annual conference. Word has leaked of what’s afoot, and they may be the most dramatic changes to the game since Kerry Packer launched World Series Cricket. The ICC plans to split Test cricket into two divisions, possibly with a championship match every two years, and certainly with promotion and relegation.
They say it will see 12 teams in a seven-five split, with the top tier being the larger of the two. Over the two-year cycle, each side would play the others in their division home or away, in series lasting a minimum of three Tests each. The winner of the second division would either be automatically promoted or go into a play-off against the bottom-ranked team from the top division. Likewise, the bottom team in division two would have to play off against the top team in the next level down, the Intercontinental Cup. In the top division, that would mean each team had 18 mandatory Tests every two years, leaving room for additional bilateral series. So the Ashes could still take place even if the two teams are in different divisions.
It’s imperfect. A six-six split would make more sense than seven-five, but that’s a necessary sop to persuade the top teams to vote for the changes. And if Australia and England are in separate divisions, it will be odd to watch an Ashes series in which the victory doesn’t count towards the rankings, especially if the underdog wins. On the other hand, if the teams are in the same division, the fact that the series would be over five Tests rather than three would create wrinkles in the scoring system. Then there is the obvious risk that the teams in the second divisions will suffer. The vice-president of the Bangladesh Cricket Board has already told Cricinfo: “We do not support this system. We believe that more we play against competitive sides, the better we will get.”
Well, Bangladesh are already suffering. They have played 93 Tests now, and won exactly seven of them. Five of those were against Zimbabwe, the other two against West Indies – the other current Test team likely to begin in division two. So much for the status quo, and the benefits Bangladesh reap from playing superior teams. Promotion and relegation should give them and the second-division teams an incentive to improve. You hope it would do that for England when, and I say this as a long-suffering fan, they are inevitably relegated some time in the 2020s.
I think the risks are worth it, and that the awkward provisions are necessary conditions. Bringing in divisions would impose order on a chaotic bilateral schedule, add significance to one-sided series and dead-rubber Tests, provide motivation for both players and fans, and open the game up to new nations.
There is another way to look at Test cricket’s hypochondria. All that alarmism may be the very thing that has enabled the game to survive so long. Test cricket’s capacity to adapt is one of its great strengths. Think how much it has already shifted; that it was once played by only two teams, that games have been played over three, four, five or six days, even been timeless, in overs that have been both four, six, and eight balls long, bowled by men delivering the ball under-arm, round-arm, and over-arm, on pitches both exposed and covered-over. Now another radical change is going to come. And about time too.
