Topic: Test Cricket Prediction and Discussion Thread [self - mod] - page 960. (Read 153385 times)

Pakistan - They have shitload amount of talent but they are $ucking up everything. Even quality bowler like Amir took early retirement from the Test format.

Bangladesh - I used to have very high hopes from them but they are going down the drain.

Sri Lanka - Management sucks and then it impact their team.

Windies - Plenty of talent but majority of them want to become mercenaries, now they are taking things seriously though.

It might be not about taking things seriously, the lack of talent to play the longer format or the lack of capacity of a cricket board to find good test caliber players is the problem here. Even the mindset of the young generation changed and they want to play only attacking cricket and test players will be ancient history in the next decade.

There are results in test matches in the past 2 years unlike earlier where majority of the matches end up in a draw and the Test Championship will help a bit in playing attacking cricket rather than going for a draw.

England and Australia usually plays more test matches and if you look at the bigger picture there were only 38 test matches played between the test playing teams in 2019 and in that England played 12 test matches and it is not a great statistics overall while there were 158 ODI matches, no idea how many T20 played in 2019 but there will be many series that were played.

How would you accomplish that  .

This is a very interesting stat. If these figures are true, then it is clear that on the contrary to the argument, most of the nations are prioritizing test cricket. For example, England played 60 days of test cricket when compared to 22 days of ODI cricket. This is an amazing statistic. I would rather ask the major boards to prioritize ODI and T20 formats instead of test, as the revenues are higher with the shorter formats.

I should have said "Top 4 teams" instead of 3-4 nations.

Coming to other teams, do we really think that Pakistan, Bangladesh, Srilanka, Windies were taking Test format seriously? I doubt that..

Atleast after "Test Championship" they are trying as their series has some sort of meaning due to point table, Its not enough but that's a start.

Its a fact few countries really trying or want to ignore test cricket because they have not good revenue and better response from crowd about this just very few countries have good and profitable system for test cricket so just because of this practically this is not good idea for world test championship.

I am not sure whether the nations are ignoring test cricket. Let's take some examples:

England played 12 test matches in 2019. That is, 60 days and 5,400 overs reserved for test cricket. On the other hand, during the same period they played 22 ODI matches. That means just 22 days and 2,200 overs. Now how can you say that they are not giving importance for test cricket?

Do we need World Test Championship?

I would say yes, for quite some time test playing nations (except 3-4) were ignoring the 5 day cricket due to T-20/Franchise or different reasons. Its kinda changed after introducing WTC, they are atleast trying. Current point system and fixtures are not perfect but its something which we already discussed many times here.

Yeah, The draft i posted is not practical at any cost. Its hypothetical unless ICC says "#&%# revenue"  

The first thing is that do we really need to conduct the test championship?  The way it is conducted now has no interest for anyone and the model which you presented is much better but consumes a lot of time which i think is not practical.

Not every team...

2 finalist ( 3 match in group + 3 matches in semifinal + 3 matches in final = 9 matches)

2 losing teams in Semifinal ( 3 matches in group + 3 matches in semifinal = 6 matches)

4 losing teams in group round (3 matches in group)

Yeah, That's why i said at the very start "Genuine World Test Cup" need 1 year window without any international cricket. its another discussion if ICC/boards are okay with or not but that's a real reason World Test Championship is running for 2 years.

^^^^ 3 match series each for QF, SF and the final? That would mean that the teams need to play 9 matches each. If this format is adopted, then the tournament can easily stretch for 4-5 months. And I don't think that we have that much gap available in the international cricket calendar. ICC as well as the individual boards will be against this idea, as the revenues will be very low.

Ideally it should be 3 test match series (Away and home), obviously this would take much more time than usual and going with single country for venue's purpose  is very biased as it favors host country ridiculously.

Its bit bizarre idea but if there is a possibility then ICC should opt for neutral country (other than top 8 test playing nation) for ex : Pick Zimbabwe as a venue and prepare 6-8 different pitches. Followed by 2 groups (Top 8 teams) and introduce 3 match series.

Group A                                
Team 1 vs Team 5 = 3 match series
Team 4 vs Team 8 = 3 match series

1st Semi Final : Winner 1 vs Winner 2 = 3 match series


Group B
Team 2 vs Team 6 = 3 match series
Team 3 vs Team 7 = 3 match series

2nd Semi Final : Winner 1 vs Winner 2 = 3 match series


World Test Cup Final
Group A Winner vs Group B winner = 3 match series

** not perfect draft but tried my best with the fixtures.

Then two test matches for every team as one home and one away and decide on points may be this bring some better results and give more attraction to peoples and teams.

These numbers not adding up. I guess you meant bottom 6 team from the ICC ranking (instead of 9-12) plus 2 Associate team for qualifier tournament. As of now there are 12 test playing nations and your proposed World Test Cup tournament is for 8 teams.


So basically you are saying that its knockout test tournament from start to finish (Qualifier and then World Cup Test Final). That's where problem arise, In shorter format knockout tournament makes sense because in recent times Pitches and Venues turning out to be same everywhere, Almost. No matter where you are playing.

But that's not the case in the Test format as Pitches and environment plays a huge part. That's why every team plays warm up games before any test series so knockout game strategy not going to work out IMO.

Well.. let me explain in detail.

First there will be a qualifier tournament, in which 8 teams will take part (ICC Test ranking teams 9 to 12, and top 4 Associate sides from the ICC ODI rankings).

So there will be Pakistan, West Indies, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Ireland, Netherlands and Oman playing this qualifying tournament. This tournament will have the same format as the Test World Cup and from this qualifying tournament, the top 2 teams would qualify for the main tournament.

Now let's come to the Test World Cup. There will be 8 teams (Top 6 test sides and two qualifiers).

Let's assume these are the teams: Australia, India, New Zealand, England, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Pakistan and West Indies. Total of 8 teams.

In the first round the 1st ranked team will take on 8th ranked team, 2nd ranked team will take on the 7th, and so on..

So this is the schedule for the first week:

AUS vs WI
NZ vs PAK
IND vs SA
ENG vs SL

Let's say.. Australia, NZ, India and ENG won the test matches and proceeded to the next phase.

Second phase will take place after 5 days of rest. There are 4 teams and the schedule will be like this:

AUS vs IND, NZ vs ENG

Two teams will proceed to the finals. And the finals will be played after 5 days of rest. So the entire tournament is completed within 25 days.

I am not sure about the venue. Given the revenues that can be generated, India seems to be a good option.

You missed the context, it was a pun intended to the response JSRAW gave to Vishnu.Reang. I am not a huge test match enthusiast and i do not want to see a match playing for 5 days and then announce that there is no result because the bowlers were not able to pick the wickets (pun).
Just making sure that you understand what i am trying to say  .

You want to reduce days for draw matches but its not going to help any way right now test is doing very good as we have very few draw test matches its just because of twenty/20 but still we have no window for test world cup as many of us want to watch because this need some good time which is very hard to set still current format is ok but need some more work and settlements from ICC and all boards.

It is impossible to have a Test world cup in a short period of time and the ICC came up with this proposition to make things interesting for the fans, it might be clumsy but to have a world champion every two years will encourage every captain who is competing to be the champion to go for the win rather than slow matches which ends up in a draw.

If we are willing to see more draws then reducing the number of days will help  . When i first watched and learned about test cricket i was thinking 5 days of play and no result is mockery  .

2 wrongs don't make a right..

Ind vs Aus, Eng vs Aus, Ind vs Eng test matches should be restricted to 3-4 days? Good luck with that..

I get that you feel positive about your idea "Test World Cup" and rooting for this, there is nothing wrong with that but you still not giving answers about how many games, venues (Draft) etc.

^^^ How many of the matches are now extending to the 5th day? So it will be more like 3-4 days of play, followed by 3-4 days of rest (if weather permits). Or you can have an additional 3 days as rest. That will slightly extend the tournament to one month instead of 3 weeks. But still, it will be of shorter duration when compared to the ODI World Cup.

I am just saying that a "real" test world cup is hundred times better than this staggered and clumsy WTC.