What has happened in the meantime though is a lot of Test cricket against England and Australia, accounting for 46 out of 102 Tests India have played in the last 10 years. As if this wasn’t good enough, prepare for a ‘fairer’, possibly a more repetitive calendar once a two-tier Test system is implemented in the World Test Championship. At least, that’s what the International Cricket Council (ICC) is reportedly considering. West Indies great Clive Lloyd feels it would be “disastrous for smaller teams”.
Openly deriding the Big Three, Sri Lanka’s World Cup winning skipper Arjuna Ranatunga has said, “Sport isn’t just about pounds, dollars and rupees. Administrators must nurture and protect the game.” But considering the steady decline of West Indies and Sri Lanka, coupled with the inert existence of Bangladesh, this was also a long time coming.
To begin with, the World Test Championship was never a fair competition to begin with. There is no compulsion to play every other nation in the two-year cycle, and so India and Pakistan never meet because of political reasons. South Africa made it to the 2025 WTC final by dint of their consistency, topping a percentage points based system everyone knew was not ideal, yet much was made out of them reaching the final without playing Australia. Which is a bit amusing because very rarely do finalists in other team sports meet each other before the final. Argentina didn’t meet France till the 2022 FIFA World Cup final. Neither did France or Croatia in 2018. Also, can South Africa be faulted for aggregating a better rank (they won eight out of 12 Tests) in a cycle where India won just nine out of 19 matches?
“I think it was unfair for people to have a go at South Africa when all South Africa did was win the Test matches that they won and ended up in the final,” said It’s not the countries or the players that are at fault, the reason why there’s a discussion on the system is because the system I don’t think is correct. It doesn’t work like that. Premier League, IPL, SA20, Bundesliga, they (teams) all play each other, then you find out who’s the best. Can’t just go and play him, and play him and play him, and go… okay, you have beaten him (team), right boom (now you are in the)… final. That doesn’t work.”
We have been here before, exactly a decade back, when the ICC got a memo stating that the distribution of revenue must be commensurate with the money brought to the institution by respective members. The Big Three—comprising India, England and Australia—scored big here. Not only that. More executive power to the trio, an annual rotating chairmanship among them in a four-member ExCo, and a relegation-promotion system from which India, England and Australia would obviously be exempt. Everything, of course, was rolled back once Shashank Manohar replaced N Srinivasan as ICC chairman and ushered in administrative democracy. This time though, the Big Three’s grip over the ICC looks firmer.
This couldn’t have come at a more testing time for the longest format. Not since 2017-18 has a four or five-Test series involving teams outside India, England and Australia been scheduled. Despite winning the inaugural World Test Championship in 2021, New Zealand got to play just 13 Tests—all two-match series barring a three-match one against England—in the next two years while England played 22, Australia 19 and India 18. Next cycle (2023-25), the match distribution for the Big Three remained almost unchanged but South Africa’s quota was reduced from 15 to 12. New Zealand played 14 Tests.
Modalities of the two-tier Test system aren’t known but fair assumption would be more Tests would be arranged between India, Australia and England, while the rest of the members might have to make do with two-Test series but more money-spinning T20s. It’s a system that, honestly, has already been institutionalised since the pandemic with India maximising their Test tours of England and Australia to five-match rubbers.
What more could the ICC add to this remains to be seen. More frequent home and away series against England and Australia? We have had that since 2021. Less playing days and more time off for the cricketers? Let’s not go there. Almost guaranteed would be the sanctioned exile of bottom placed teams though. Imagine a world where Jasprit Bumrah won’t be sauntering in from the Michael Holding end at Sabina Park, no Frank Worrell or Warne-Muralitharan Trophy, just endless cricket against the same faces, at the same venues. How would that benefit the lifeblood of cricket?
