Should ICC implement a relegation rule to enhance the poor climate of Test Cricket?
With the ICC having already shown its keen interest in convening the ICC World Test Championship, with playoffs scheduled to be held in 2017, it is time for them to introduce another rule into global cricket to arrest the slump of quality and interest, given the display by lower-ranked sides, despite being given numerous opportunities.
Barring South Africa, no other cricket team has played the format as well outside home, often relying on home turfs to secure victories and going through the lower-ranked sides, they have become the mincemeat of every top cricket team.
West Indies’ downfall in Test cricket
The first Test at Hobart indicated exactly that, with the West Indies, once a powerhouse in the format, getting walloped as expected by many. This consequently saw the game being ended in less than three days.
What is worse is that the Windies’ downfall in every series, just like the minnows Zimbabwe, can be cushily predicted. Ask any expert, they fill their diaries writing big articles about the sorrowful state of West Indies cricket, especially in the longer version and they (the articles) always fetch them good points because the Caribbean outfit loses frequently.
Though it is not the first game in this format where a team has lost under three days, but the frequency of succumbing to these pathetic losses, both away and home, raises many questions regarding their elimination from Test cricket.
The unarrested downfall is not only restricted to the ‘The Living Death’ of the Carribean cricket, it is rather transparently visible in the abysmally poor performances of Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.
The so-called ‘minnows’ of Test cricket have a strong distaste to this format due to their inability to play and embrace Test cricket. Looking at top players like Chris Gayle and Dwayne Bravo, they have shown more interest in playing T20 domestic competitions like the Big Bash and the IPL, while neglecting their national team Test duties.
Bangladesh and Zimbabwe
Even with Bangladesh, barring a couple of victories, which guarantee their designated number 9 slot in the Test rankings, are not interested in improving their Test standards and are often happy to stay a place above Zimbabwe.
The storyline is even worse for Zimbabwe, who when given their chances to play against relatively lesser-strong teams like the Kiwis and West indies, fail to deliver virtually every match.
The last Test victory which Zimbabwe had was back in 2013 when they beat Pakistan. When you consider the number of matches interspersed between this famous win and the first Test win, since their re-emergence, it is a long list – including three Test matches against Pakistan, two against West Indies, one against New Zealand (all lost in addition to three more against Bangladesh, away).
Possible solutions?
So, as it is clearly visible, the state of Test cricket is surely on a deteriorating surface, which needs some definite mending to enhance the standards. If the ICC can introduce a relegation rule into the format, in addition to the play-off Championship, then in all certainty, competition amongst the teams and viewer attraction would proliferate simultaneously.
Just like Championship play-offs would lessen the boredom of watching a five-day drawn Test, this very rule can even afford the associate countries to break into the top ten and get some exposure at the highest level.
Looking at teams like Ireland and the Netherlands, along with Afghanistan who have been improving with leaps and bounds over the years, and certainly better than the West Indies or Zimbabwe, in the shorter versions of the game, they certainly deserve their chances of playing the longer format and riding cheek to cheek with the stronger countries.
With the entry of associate nations into Test cricket, it would even improve the chances of lower-division teams to gain promotion and even come close to challenging the teams fighting for top ten places.
In all sense, it would give an incentive to them to showcase their Test match skills or even improve them with years to come and send a caution to the faltering teams to improve theirs as well to retain their hold in top ten.
This rule would mean guaranteeing the associates Test memberships, but as long as they can prove their merits and perform better than the others, they deserve to play this format.
Ireland and Netherlands, especially have shown they have strong domestic club competition and grassroots programmes, which would further improve their chances of performing as well in Tests as they do in the limited overs format. Teams like the Windies should be sent a strong ultimatum regarding their performances.in this arena.
The neutral audience is hardly attracted to watch a single Australia-West Indies game simply because of the sorrowful state of the West Indies Test cricket and their awful performances and so it would be an ideal time to give the associates some chances to play against the ‘Big Boys’ of the game.