England and Australia lived up to the elongated hype and delivered an Ashes series which captivated cricket lovers around the world and proved, again, that there is plenty of mileage left in the format. But there was a kick in the teeth from the game’s global administrators the day after the 2-2 draw was completed, a blow that may be felt most painfully by the world’s smaller Test-playing nations.
England captain Ben Stokes spoke about providing a “boost” for Test cricket, with the Ashes series giving the format a much-needed shot in the arm. It was subsequently noted, wryly, that capacity crowds on almost every day at five venues in England did not reflect Test cricket in crisis. And that other countries Are facing significantly greater problems than England or Australia.
England don’t play another Test until the end of January, six months being their longest hiatus between games for about five years. SA, of course, will have gone closer to 10 months between Tests by the time they play India in Centurion on December 26.
The Test cricket discourse will shut down in the intervening months with global attention shifting to the World Cup and local anticipation for Australia’s imminent arrival commanding our attention. There will be three T20 Internationals and, more relevantly, five ODIs, which will finish just under three weeks before the start of the World Cup in India on October 5. It is an exciting prospect.
The Proteas will have about 10 days at home after the tour to fine-tune before leaving for India, while the Australians have a monster tour coming up as they head straight to India on September 18 for three more ODIs against the hosts before the start of the tournament. They will remain in the country after the final for a series of T20 Internationals, which is already a contender for “anticlimax” of the year — no matter what happens in the World Cup. Even for Indian fans.
There is much discourse about the proliferation of domestic T20 leagues around the world, whether they might be good, bad or irrelevant to the health of the international game. But for SA they have — in the immediate term — been a godsend.
After the second and final ODI against the Netherlands at the Wanderers at the beginning of April, there was a gap of five months before the next international fixture. That is a long time for professional cricketers to be idle. Had it not been for the Indian Premier League, Major League Cricket in the US, the Canadian Global T20, the Lanka Premier League and The Hundred in England, SA’s best white-ball cricketers would have been undercooked for the World Cup, even with the Australia series.
But I’m not done with the five-day conversation. SA, like the other “small seven” Test-playing nations, desperately needs the World Test Championship (WTC) to succeed and flourish. It is a badly flawed format anyway and, with great irony, heavily weighted in favour of the smaller nations because it is far more difficult to gain maximum points in a five-match series than a two-Test series. India, England and Australia play only five-match series against each other. The rest, mostly, only contest two matches.
The “big three” need all the points they can muster to have a chance of reaching the final, which the broadcasters and marketers would like. So, what did the International Cricket Council (ICC) do after the series? Docked a staggering 19 points from England and 10 from Australia for what were, admittedly, painfully slow over rates by both sides. England could, potentially, have earned more points for losing 4-1.
But it’s not England or Australia we should be worried about, it’s the rest of us. Should either of the Ashes combatants fail to reach the WTC final because of the docked points, how seriously will they take the competition in future? In the words of Stuart Broad, the sanction “diminishes the Test Championship”. Frankly, it’s a Mickey Mouse ruling.
And when they fail to take it seriously and play their best teams, how much interest will the broadcasters show — and how much will they be prepared to pay for the rights? Less and less, leading to diminishing returns and, eventually, a return to bilateral tours between the big three and the occasional exhibition Test for the others, like SA. An Ashes warm-up, a curtain-raiser, perhaps, as Ireland provided for England.
We deserve better. But you have to fight for what you deserve.
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