Warm-Up Matches Need An Overhaul

Tim Wigmore believes more thought needs to go into preventing tour matches from becoming tedious and irrelevant

- Tim Wigmore

So far, then, so predictable.England’s first month Down Under has brought little surprise: three low-key warm-up games which went well enough, and then a Test in Brisbane which emphatically did not.

The two are inherently linked. Substandard opposition in warm-up games means that, even when tourists play three warm-up games – something now unheard of outside Ashes tours – they can still appear woefully short of preparation come the first Test, giving the home team a huge advantage.

This matters – not just for England in this Ashes series, but for Test cricket more broadly. As Gideon Haigh wrote recently, every Test series has become a referendum on the game’s future – a test not just of the players, but Test cricket’s very popularity and relevance.

Talk to broadcasters about sport, and they emphasise how much viewers value unpredictability: essentially, turning on the match and not knowing who is going to win.