London:
One of the biggest shake-ups in cricket history could take place when the sport’s global governing body convenes in Edinburgh tomorrow. Radical plans for the creation of two divisions in Test cricket and a one-day international league will be on the agenda of the International Cricket Council’s week-long annual meeting in the Scottish capital.
Since Australia and England played the first Test in 1877, international matches have largely been matters for the two countries concerned and the same has generally been true of ODIs outside of tournaments such as the World Cup.
The ICC has introduced weighted Test rankings but the complicated formula has failed to capture the imagination of cricket fans and the wider sporting public.
With many top players increasingly tempted by offers to play in domestic Twenty20 events such as the Indian Premier League, where they can earn more money in less time than by playing Tests, officials are keen to give the long-format game greater “context”.
This, they believe, would make it more attractive to broadcasters and so help generate greater revenues.
“We are looking at competition structures across all three formats (Tests, ODIs and Twenty20),” ICC chief executive David Richardson told AFP at the launch of the 2017 Champions Trophy earlier this month.
“We want to find ways of playing slightly less cricket but more meaningful cricket.”
Richardson is behind a scheme that would see the creation of seven teams in Division One and five, including two new Test nations, in Division Two.
They would play in a league system where there was promotion and relegation. Each team in the top tier would play every other side home or away in a two-year cycle.
Matches and series would each be given a set number of points—the exact figures are still to be decided—to determine the standings.
At the end of the cycle, the bottom team would be relegated, with the team on top the new world Test champions.
Series such as the Ashes could still take place even if England and Australia were in different divisions, as countries would be allowed to schedule extra matches.
Similar considerations are behind plans to introduce a 13-team ODI league which, as with the new Test structure would begin in 2019.
