The International Cricket Council (ICC) yesterday unveiled a long-awaited, nine-nation Test championship in a bid to preserve the five-day format’s status following the rapid growth of Twenty20.
The Test league was among a raft of reforms agreed at an ICC board meeting in Auckland, New Zealand, including revamping the one-day international schedule and trialling four-day Tests.
“Our priority was to develop [a] structure that gave context and meaning across international cricket and particularly in the Test arena,” ICC chief David Richardson said in a statement.
The Test league is to start in 2019 and see nine teams play six series over two years — three home and three away. It will culminate in a final between the two top teams at Lord’s.
The ICC has argued for years that a Test championship is needed to boost the format’s popularity as crowds and TV viewers flock to the fast-paced, big-hitting Twenty20 version of the game.
It first appointed a committee to examine the concept back in 1998, but squabbling over formats and fears that some nations would be disadvantaged have twice stymied efforts to launch a league structure since 2010.
“Bringing context to bilateral cricket is not a new challenge, but this is the first time a genuine solution has been agreed on,” ICC chairman Shashank Manohar said.
The nine nations in the competition are Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka and West Indies.
Cricket Australia chief James Sutherland called it “a really significant moment in international cricket history.”
“It’s a tremendous step forward. The ICC and member countries have made a strong statement about international cricket and how we want to make sure it remains at the forefront of the three forms of the game.”
The ICC will hope it is a case of third time lucky for the Test championship after two previous attempts failed without a ball being bowled in anger.
A version was supposed to begin in 2013, but was scrapped because existing commercial arrangements meant the ICC was obliged to stage the one-day Champions Trophy instead.
Then plans for a June launch were scuppered when some of the game’s power brokers, including India, objected to a proposed two-tier league system, saying smaller teams would be disadvantaged.
There was also a reported lack of interest from television companies.
Purists view Test cricket as the pinnacle of the sport, but it has struggled, particularly in Asia, as lucrative T20 competitions such as the Indian Premier League caught the public’s imagination.
A recent innovation designed to reverse the trend is the introduction of day-night Test matches, which moves playing sessions to more spectator-friendly hours after dark.
The Auckland meeting also agreed to experiment with four-day Tests, with South Africa and Zimbabwe set to trial the first in December.
Richardson emphasized that the shorter Test matches were only being trialled and their results would not be part of the new Test championship.
“Throughout the discussions about the future of Test cricket it became clear... we must also consider alternatives and trial initiatives that may support the future viability of Test cricket,” he said.
Yu Yao-hsing on Tuesday nabbed Taiwan’s only goal in the final round of qualifiers for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup, as they fell 3-1 to Sri Lanka at Taipei Municipal Stadium. Early goals from Sri Lanka in the first half left Taiwan struggling to get on the board, and Christopher Tiao’s own goal at 53 minutes sealed the team’s fate in the third round of qualifiers. While acknowledging that the defeat, Taiwan’s sixth in Group D, was disappointing, head coach Matt Ross said he saw reasons to stay positive about the team’s development. “There were lots of positive signs in terms of the
“I don’t remember the moment, but ever since I was a kid, that’s the first thing I loved,” two-time NBA All-Star Isaiah Thomas said of his lifelong romance with basketball. However, that journey unfolded against the limitations of his size in a game where height often dictates opportunity — a reality he confronted throughout his career. At 175cm, Thomas is less than 2cm taller than the average Taiwanese adult male, while NBA players during his career stood at about 200cm on average. Compared with the NBA’s average career length of less than five years, Thomas’ 13-season career stands out as
INDIGESTION: Italy failed to qualify for the World Cup for a third consecutive time after a 4-1 defeat to Bosnia on penalties in a loss Gattuso said was ‘difficult to digest’ Coach Graham Arnold on Tuesday challenged his players to “shock the world” after Iraq became the 48th and final team to qualify for the FIFA World Cup with a nerve-shredding 2-1 win over Bolivia in an intercontinental playoff in Mexico, as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Sweden and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) also secured their places at the finals. Iraq, whose preparations were disrupted by the war in the Middle East, sealed their first appearance at the finals in 40 years and are to play in Group I against France, Senegal and Norway. Goals from Ali al-Hamadi
Dakar and Rabat have longstanding ties, but relations have been strained since the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) final, which Senegal won in mid-January before being stripped of the title, which was transferred to Morocco. Now, the AFCON trophy is something of a thorn in the two countries’ sides. On Rue Mohamed V, the street where Moroccan vendors are based in the Senegalese capital, a police van is parked. “The police have been on high alert since the Confederation of African Football [CAF] decided to award the title to Morocco, but there have been no incidents,” a local resident said.
RSS