ICC Test World Cup in 2013?

[Gurjot95]

LONDON: A tournament for declaring the world's best team in Test cricket may finally become reality. The International cricket Council will decide on a two-yearly tournament-like world Test championship - as opposed to the current rolling format - at a meeting of chief executives of cricket boards at Cape Town next month.

England in the summer of 2013 is among the leading candidates to host the inaugural competition.

ICC spokesperson Colin Gibson said more details would be revealed after the mid-September meeting. If the championship is held in England, the final will be at Lord's.

A five-member committee, which includes BCCI secretary N Srinivasan, will submit its recommendation next month to the chief executives, who are then expected to arrive at their choices.

The matter will, therefore, have to be ratified by the ICC's board, before it's cast in stone. The committee is said to have debated whether the top four teams or the top eight teams should constitute the actual play-off. Martin Crowe, former New Zealand captain, has publicly favoured the latter, although he is not a member of the empowered committee.

Either way, there will be a cut-off point several months before the actual contest to determine the final participants. There is a possibility that up to six days will be allotted to a world Test championship match to ensure an outcome in the final and knock-out phase.

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If it gets green signal then for the first time we will have Test World Cup which will be held in England.

 

[Prithvi]

Good move by ICC.
Hopefully, this should be hosted by all the nations, not just England, Cause every team cannot just go and win at English Pitches.
Every team should get few matches on their home soil, so that it'll be fair for all the teams and commercialized.

 

[Ollie_H]

There is no way this is commercially viable.

 

[SciD]

The beauty of test cricket is player adapting to different conditions and I dont find a tournament running in only one country that appealing. Apart from the obvious weather and pitch conditions which can play part. In ODI sides have at least 3 games to redeem themselves. 3 games in test matches mean 3 weeks.

And how will you decide the teams even if you are going to play top 4 lets say. The competition is so close that any of these teams if miss out will cry out loud:
India
RSA
Australia
Sri Lanka
England
Pakistan

 

[SaiSrini]

The seedings for the Top 4 (or Top 8) should be determined by all the test matches that the teams play up until the cut off date. Which means, test matches that take place will assume greater meaning. One thing the ICC should make sure is that each and every test match (be it a dead rubber) assumes importance as far as determining the Top 4 is concerned. And the test World Championship should be held every 2 years.

Would be good if the test championship takes on the tri-series format where each team in the Top 4 plays the other 3 teams (one round) and then the top two teams meet in the final.

 

[pcfan123]

ICC needs to conduct pitch inspections before each match of the "tournament" to help ensure competition between bat and ball.

 

[Prithvi]

The seedings for the Top 4 (or Top 8) should be determined by all the test matches that the teams play up until the cut off date. Which means, test matches that take place will assume greater meaning.

India will pull out of test Championship then:laugh.

 

[WubbaLubbaDubDub]

Whats yoyr logic behind it ?

 

[Varun]

I guess that will only be successful when they introduce the day-night tests.
Otherwise, how would we watch this, when we're at schools/offices ?

 

[IanG]

India will pull out of test Championship then:laugh.

Well fearsome tweak 'em then!

 

[angryangy]

At least the first time around, the sheer curiosity will make it commercially viable. Bigger problems lie in the impracticality and potential convolution of the concept.

What sort of format? Even a three match finals series could create a protracted engagement for four teams. The easiest format is obviously a bilateral series between 1 and 2, but at the same time, is there much merit to that? I suppose even though the top sides play each other consistently, the number of times they are ranked 1 and 2 at the right time is less common. However, some might also argue that the ladder is slow to respond to a team's real change in competitiveness.

You could hardly afford to have a draw in a knockout competition, so the options are to either rule out such a format or provide some insurance that matches can be played until won. Allowing for six or seven days to complete a Test would probably also rule out the format because of the problem of taking as much as six weeks for four sides to warm up and play 3 Tests.

Could it be played on neutral ground to negate various territorial factors? Would there be a need to play such a competition in a place like England or India? Many places don't seem to draw a lot of large crowds to Tests and when they do, the capacity is still insignificant.

There are so many factors to consider, that it is alarming how close the ICC could be to going ahead with it. One would hope that the committee has more ideas than they have spoken about.

 

[icyman]

I think this is a good idea. A Test championship will obviously infuse some much needed enthusiasm in the Test game.
Instead of a knock-out,the ideal situation will be to allocate points like the ones that had been allocated in the Asian Test Championship.
In addition to this, let the countries play each other over a time period and then go in for a knock out with the Top4.

 

[SciD]

The sheer size of the game (5 days) is not convenient for tournament of any sort.

 

[AngryPixel]

But it would be awesome... Test cricket is already awesome:hpraise. With a competition environment there wont be any dead rubber. Even draws would make an impact, thus we wont see some boring passage where some teams goes on complete defensive.
If there is no time for a tournament then assign a particular match of a bilateral series between two nations as a match of group stages. This was points from that match can be taken and group stages can be played out efficiently.

 

[pcfan123]

The sheer size of the game (5 days) is not convenient for tournament of any sort.

Tell that to the golfers.