MUMBAI: The suggestion to break Test cricket into two tiers - Division 1 and 2 - has done the rounds for over a decade, but Australian newspaper The Age reports that the matter is slated to be discussed between International Cricket Council (ICC) chairman Jay Shah and executives from Cricket Australia (CA) and England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) this month.
If these discussions prove fruitful, Tests could become an even more closed group than it is under the World Test Championship (WTC) cycle.
The proposed idea places top seven nations - Australia, England, India, South Africa, New Zealand, Pakistan and Sri Lanka - in Division 1 and others - Bangladesh, West Indies, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and Ireland - in Division 2. This would facilitate the Big Three (Australia, England and India) to play each other more frequently; that's twice in three years. They meet once in two years now.
The matter was taken up at ICC level in 2016, but was shot down by many boards, including the BCCI. At the time, BCCI's clout in ICC was based on its benevolence, allowing the India team to tour smaller nations and boost their balance sheet.
With time, Test cricket's commercial appeal further diminished outside the Big Three nations. Cricket South Africa openly prioritised its T20 league by shrinking its Test calendar. That this formula - winning short, sharp series - worked in their favour to make the WTC final over England and India, who lost steam their five-Test series in Australia 1-3, explains everything about the make-do WTC arrangement.
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