It wasn’t just South Africans and Australians who noticed what a stunning occasion the World Test Championship (WTC) final was at Lord’s last week.
The world’s Test nations watched with envy, all planning their campaigns over the next two years with the aim of being there in June 2027. All, perhaps, except the host nation.
Ben Stokes has given Test cricket an enormous boost with his passion for the format, even turning down the riches of the IPL to focus on captaining his country in whites.
But it remains baffling that Stokes is so ho-hum about the WTC. “I’ve been criticised for the things I’ve said about it before but my views haven’t changed,” he said before the first of five Tests against India at Headingley. Stokes said the WTC was “confusing” and questioned its validity and relevance. He has his reasons.
The WTC is a little confusing, and jam-packed with compromises and imperfections, some of them plain silly. Nine teams, which play only six fixtures, three of which will always be contested by the same three teams over five Tests while the others make up the numbers, depending on who has a gap in their schedule and is available to play two Tests. Two teams will never play against each other.
This deformed monster of a competition would not make it past the planning stage of an organising committee in any other sport in the world, yet eight of the nine teams have embraced it enthusiastically. The number of fixtures played by the “Big Three” means the odds are stacked against them reaching the final — Schadenfreude and irony fusion — yet India and Australia are still “all-in”. They love it. Not because it’s “the thing” but because it’s “a thing”.
Stokes is his own man and unlikely to be influenced by his employers, but others in English cricket will have noticed another indifference to the WTC being expressed by England Cricket Board CEO Richard Gould, who said it “had its merits” but wasn’t the “be-all and end-all” for English cricket.
Fair enough. But he might have acknowledged that it is absolutely the be-all and end-all for six of the countries involved in it, both financially and in keeping its best players motivated to play Test cricket.
The new WTC cycle began with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh playing out a high-scoring draw in Galle. There has been some delectable cricketing friction between the two teams in recent years but, for the most part, the previews to that series centred on their ambitions in the Test Championship and the context it provides for bilateral series.
Sri Lanka were genuine contenders for a place in last week’s final until they lost 2-0 to SA in their penultimate series.
Stokes said: “All I know is that if we win games of cricket then the rest will take care itself.” So, it’s not quite as difficult to understand as the England captain had initially suggested.
His disinterest in the tournament may have started when England were docked a ridiculous 19 points at the start of the previous cycle for slow over-rates during the Ashes, which made their route to the final even harder — it effectively ended their chances.
Teams should be made to bowl the minimum number of overs and should be penalised for not doing so but docking points is the equivalent of imprisoning parents for not applying sun-cream to their young children (as once happened in Australia.) Instead of Championship points, fine them with something that really hurts. No, not money. Runs.
But then, if England had been taking it more seriously, they might have bowled a few more overs each day anyway.
Perhaps a victory in Leeds and a series win against India will ignite Stokes’ interest in reaching the next final at Lord’s in two years.
Every other team certainly wants to be there. It would be a shame if England are left behind in the collective desire to support Test cricket with a competition and a prize that really means something, even in its current format.
Imagine how much support there’ll be for it when it is eventually reshaped into something that actually looks like a league.
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