England vs Pakistan at Lord’s is the start of a 10-year world cricket championship
Neal Collins
The longest-lasting league championship in the history of the world started on Thursday with South Africa very firmly in the running for a brand new R350 000 trophy.
When Pakistan turned out against England at Lord’s, the 10-year International Cricket Council (ICC) Test Championship kicked off, if that’s the right expression.
After 120 years of literally pointless Test matches, every five-day struggle will now count towards the once-mythical title of world champions.
Forget the one-day thrashes and that pyjama-plagued World Cup every four years. This is the real thing. Everyone knows there is only one pure form of cricket (though precious few of us have ever personally had to endure a 35-hour sporting contest, six hours on a Saturday to escape the gardening is enough for me).
For the next decade 10 nations will be embroiled in the battle to reach the top of the ICC table and claim a glittering new trophy. And at last we will be able to explain this quaint game to the Americans: “It’s simple. Five days of pure tension. If we win, we dominate the world.”
That should do it. Forget all that “you’re in until you’re out” stuff. But the Yanks might be confused by the presence of more than one country in this particular World Series.
The Test Championship concept was first suggested in Wisden Monthly in November 1996. It was taken up by the ICC in June 1997 when chief executive Dave Richards said: “I think a Test championship is the way ahead. We are waiting to see whether the proposal receives any support.”
It did. And the rest is history. Gone are the days of unsubstantiated claims. Now the best Test side in the world will get their hands on a meaningful piece of silverware.
Malcolm Gray, the ICC president, says: “I can confirm that an ICC Test Match Championship trophy will be brought in. We hope the championship will add interest to Test cricket. We would hope that a lot of supporters of the game would be interested in constantly monitoring who is on top of that ladder.”
That trophy designed by exclusive jewellers Asprey & Garrard will be presented to Australia before the start of this year’s Ashes series. And from then on the gold and silver cup, worth more than 30 000, will pass to the side at the top of the table. If England beat both Pakistan and Australia this summer, they will move into second place. But, because they lost their last two home series against those two nations, defeat would leave them in third.
Sadly the ICC hasn’t stuck to the Wisden formula used since 1996 for working out league positions. It has discounted all the one-off Tests, a tactic which tends to work against the smaller nations such as Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe who have battled so hard for their slice of the Test cake over the past 10 years.
Wisden is unhappy about that but the salient facts remain the same: the top three are Australia, South Africa and England in that order, while Zimbabwe and Bangladesh languish at numbers nine and 10. Based on the past five years and set to run for the next 10 on a rolling basis, two points are awarded for winning a series, one for a draw, none for losers.
Up until the current England vs Pakistan series, an average score per series had come into play but from now on only real points mean prizes and by 2005 only actual Tests played will count. There’s no relegation.