What is the point of the WTC points system?

After much deliberation and many, many false starts, the ICC World Test Championship is finally underway. Test cricket is undoubtedly the most storied of the three cricketing formats, but one big complaint that many fans have repeated over the years is that there was no “context” and a “central narrative” to this glorious game. Make no mistake, much of the fables of test cricket have been relayed from generation to generation through heroic deeds in (mostly) bilateral series, but results in one series rarely had an impact outside of that “context”. Now, with this system, there is something—a big, shiny trophy—to play for, for the top two teams in the league phase, culminating in a final at Lord’s. As an aside, this time around, if the final match were to result in a draw or a tie, both teams will be declared as joint winners.

All good then? More fans will buy into this new-fangled system? Not quite. I’m not convinced.

In a nutshell, the ICC World Test Championship is a league competition for Test cricket, with the top two teams advancing to a one-off (playoff) final to decide the winner. While this sounds good in theory, there are many flies in the ointment. Dig deeper by going to the ICC World Test Championship FAQ page, you’ll be left asking—What the FAQ?

Take, for instance, the points system. Throughout cricketing history, the length of test series have varied from 1 to 6 test matches (let us ignore the number of days in a test match for the time being); these could be because of market reasons, competitive reasons (test cricket rarely sees upsets) and others. And, as Ravi Shastri has reminded us ad nauseam, all 4 results are possible in test cricket: win, tie, draw, and loss.

No. of tests in series	Win	Tie	Draw	Loss
2	60	30	20	0
3	40	20	13	0
4	30	15	10	0
5	24	12	8	0

 

Looking at the above table, especially examining the ratio of points between a win, draw, and loss, the inspiration behind the scoring system becomes obvious—the 3-1-0 or “Three points for a win” formula of football. This system (which superseded the 2-1-0 system) encouraged more attacking play as both teams stood to gain two extra points by “going for the win”. An argument can be made that teams will be encouraged to “push for the result” here as well. For instance, in 2011, with this points system, it would be hard to imagine Dhoni’s India playing out a draw in Roseau; when systemic incentives are aligned this way, teams would be more encouraged to secure maximum points.

But then, is the above table really similar to the model followed in the footballing world? Take any top league in European football, for instance. Each team plays every other team twice, once at home and once away; in a 20-team league, each team plays 38 matches. Of course, fixture congestion and injuries can play a minor role, but this format is fairer compared to that of a knockout competition, in which upsets are more common. It is very rare that someone like the 2015-16 Leicester City team wins a league competition after 38 games—kinda similar to the test format. But herein lies the important difference—every one of the 38 games is equal, with an equal number of points on offer.

First of all, in the Test Championship, all teams don’t play each other in each cycle (India vs Pakistan is another matter altogether); but more importantly, in the above table, some test matches are worth more than the others. Additionally, there is nothing in this system that factors in the difficulty of the opposition or home/away disparity (though, to be fair, neither does the 3-1-0 system in league football).

In the above system, the “unit” is not a game, but instead a test series (with a 120 maximum points to play for). In a 2-match series, a test win is worth 60 points, whereas the same test win is worth far lesser in a longer series. So, a team could lose all 5 matches away to a strong team, and recoup all those points lost in a 2-test match series at home against a weaker team. For instance, if the Indian team had won 3-1 away in Australia (it won 2-1) in the 4-test match series it would have racked up only 90 points, but would instead win 120 points if it wins 2-0 at home to Sri Lanka in a 2-test series. However, hardly any cricket fan or player would value the latter as the higher achievement in today’s cricketing context.

Therefore, bizarrely, this system rewards doing well in 2-test match series. If I were a team captain, I would be mightily worried when there is a chance of weather disrupting a win in a 2-test match result; one rained out session can see my team lose out on 40 points (60 to 20), and the team would have to work towards winning two test matches from “draw positions” in a 4-match series (10 to 30) to make up for lost points. The ICC could have easily mandated a standard (either 3 or 4) test match series format to prevent this from happening.

With such incentives, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine teams lining up “weaker” opposition at home to rack up the points and game the system. If you think I’m being paranoid, hear me out one last time.

The footballing counterparts of the ICC, FIFA, have a ranking system to rank national football teams. These have ramifications on how teams are slotted in multi-national tournaments (World Cup, Euro etc.). In 2011, Wales were 117^th on the rankings, but in four years, they were in the top-10. How? After their loss to Netherlands, for over 1.5 years, they didn’t play a single non-competitive game which could have affected their ranking. If you’re thinking they were alone, Switzerland and Romania indulged in this as well, gaming the system to rise up the table and getting into more favourable pots and groups in the big tournaments, thus lessening the chances of playing a “big team” in the group stage. Therefore, it isn’t irrational to dream up such a situation in this competition as well.

For all its faults, the pre-existing ICC rankings is a much better system and could have been tweaked for this purpose; after all, it takes into consideration the difficulty of opposition and number of matches, but is much more difficult to understand. If the ICC was worried about the Rankings’ complexity, imagine the confusion that will arise when the dissonance between the Test Championship standings and ICC Test Rankings shows up because of the above factors. If you thought the Test format is hard to explain to a newcomer, the day is not far off when you will have to explain why a test team ranked at number 6 (but is number 2 on the points table due to clever scheduling and optimization) is playing the final. Therefore, it is just a matter of time before the novelty wears off and fans complain about this lopsided system which is at odds with how cricket has been played.

 

 

 

Why can’t the BCCI play big brother?

Domestic bliss: Why can’t the BCCI invite nearby national teams to add to the Ranji trophy? Image source: 1.

With great power comes great responsibility.

As clichéd and overused as this phrase is, it rings true in case of BCCI in the cricketing world. BCCI is easily the most powerful cricketing board and stands above all its peers. This is in no small part due to India being the largest cricketing fan base.

However, cricket is not a popular game most countries around the world. In fact, there are only ten full members in ICC out of the total 105 countries registered. Out of these 10 teams, four of them are from the Indian subcontinent. There are two representatives each from Oceania and Africa, a solitary team each from North America and Europe and none from South America.

The rest of the teams are either Associates or Affiliate members. To qualify as an Associate or an Affiliate team, there exist certain conditions on the organizational structure and the level of cricket infrastructure. In order to qualify as a full member, the team performance must also be good over and above the organizational and infrastructural requirements. It is not easy for the associate teams to break this glass ceiling and make the jump to the full member status. The last time this happened was 17 years ago when Bangladesh were awarded the test status in 2000.

They were woefully underprepared when they were given the opportunity as they did not have any structured multi-day competition in 1999, one year before their test debut. They may have been derided for their lack of results in the test scene, but their recent victory against England needs to be seen from the viewpoint of an underdog getting a spectacular result against a team which had a 200 year head start over them in cricket.

If the sport needs to grow beyond the confines of the existing hegemony, there needs to be significant strengthening of the so called “Tier-B” teams. The BCCI, being a very powerful organization should consider it their responsibility to not only help popularize the sport in newer countries, but also help the countries who want to make the step up. To this end, it would be a positive move to consider the addition of teams from Afghanistan and Nepal into the Ranji trophy.

Both Nepal and Afghanistan are Associate members at ICC. Afghanistan also holds the temporary ODI and T20I status granted by ICC. Nepal held the T20I status temporarily before losing it in 2015. This goes to show that they are among the top Associate teams, and with some help can tremendously improve their chances of playing test cricket.

The BCCI has previously come to the aid of the Afghanistan and Nepali cricket in different ways. At the end of last year, the BCCI signed an MoU which would allow Afghanistan to play its home matches against other associate teams and full member A teams at the Shahid Vijay Singh Pathik Sports Complex in Noida. BCCI had also opened the doors to its training facility and technical expertise to Nepali cricketers after a major earthquake devastated Nepal in 2015.

But neither of these countries have been invited to join the domestic competitions in India.

This would not be the first instance of a country allowing teams from other countries to participate in its domestic competition. The practice is prevalent across multiple sports and the teams from the “smaller” countries have reaped the benefits of playing in a better competition.

An example from the footballing world which would spring to mind immediately would be the Welsh clubs like Swansea City and Cardiff City playing in the English football league system. Swansea in particular have been extremely successful, currently plying their trade in the top tier of English football, the English Premier League and also having qualified for a European competition in 2013 after winning the English League Cup.

In Rugby, Argentinian team Pampas XV participated in the South African second domestic competition for 4 years. This team consisted entirely of members who were a part of the High Performance Plan of the Argentinian Rugby Union. This team served as the backup to the Argentinian national rugby team.

USA and Canada have a very fruitful relationship in this regard where the Canadian teams from multiple sports like Basketball, Baseball, Ice Hockey etc. take part in the US domestic competitions.

In cricket, the blurring of lines between the teams of different countries for a domestic tournament have been far fewer. The Indian domestic tournaments have tried and abandoned a few such attempts. For a few years in the 2000s, the Duleep trophy in India which is traditionally held between the five zones from India included a foreign guest team to compete as the sixth team. The sixth team usually was a second tier team from a strong country or a first tier team from a low ranking full member.

Another such example would be the M J Gopalan trophy. This was an annual first class competition played between Ceylon Cricket Association (Sri Lanka) and Madras primarily between 1952 and 1982, easing Sri Lanka’s journey from an associate member to a full member with test status.

With ICC recently announcing changes to the Test and ODI calendars, the “associate” teams have a chance to play against the big boys—probably taking the place of warm up games for tests against other opponents in the same region. Taking a lesson from Bangladesh’s journey, the bigger countries should go one step ahead and nurture a first class structure to ease the associates’ journey.

Maybe the time has come to break the norm, and try a policy of inclusion for the teams from the associate countries to compete at the first class level with the teams of the full members. Both Ireland and Scotland have mentioned that they would welcome the chance to join the English county championship. The ECB is still considering whether to expand their 18 team competition to a 21 team competition with three divisions of seven. Afghanistan and Nepal would probably accept such an invitation from BCCI with open arms.

Of course, these procedures will involve reshaping the existing tournaments a little to fit in additional teams. And there will also be the question of at what level these teams need to be included (. But these are details which can be ironed out easily the Ranji trophy has 3 groups of varying difficulty) keeping the bigger picture in mind. The eventual aim of this exercise would be to empower the teams from these countries and establish a good first class structure in their home country.

The progress of these teams in the first class competitions would also help the ICC in making decisions about providing full membership to these countries instead of relying upon their performances in tournaments which happen once in four years.

For many years now, cricket has been a stronghold of a handful of countries with the others just looking in. For the betterment of the game this needs to change, and it would bode well if the first step towards this was taken by the BCCI.

Disclaimer: The image used in this article is not the property of this blog. The copyright, if any, rests with the respective owners.

Testing times for test cricket

Changes afoot: A new test league is due to come into place after the ICC Meeting in Dubai. Image source: 1.

Recently, the Chief Executives committee (CEC) met up in Dubai to decide the fate of the international cricket calendar. In one swift move, it has suggested sweeping changes to the international calendar, and one that could have far-reaching implications. The main purpose behind such a move seems to be rooted behind two motives: one, to provide “context” to every cricket match, culminating in a championship—à la other league based organized sports; and two, to provide some set of fixtures for the “lower” teams, and a promise of advancing through the ranks. While both claims are debatable considering the implementation issues, it is worth examining what caused the proposal to take this form over time, especially with respect to test cricket.

In 2009, the ICC called a meeting to discuss the idea of a World Test Championship. Cricket is particularly an oddball when it comes to the highest team honour of the game. The most prestigious team trophy in World cricket would be the ODI World Cup. With the advent of the popular T20 format, another World cup joined the fray. These “World level” showpiece events draw attention from outsiders, and give a chance for fans to soak in the atmosphere. Many of us in India jumped on the footballing bandwagon during the World cups, before moving on to follow club-level football on a regular basis.

Instead, the most prestigious contests in test cricket are bilateral series, which is hard to explain to an outsider and doesn’t have the same zing as a “World Test Championship”. In spite of test cricket being the original format of the game, it didn’t have a showpiece tournament of its own. What chance did test cricket have to add on to its followers?

Isn’t this odd?

This is where things get a bit murky. The ODI World cup is on a 4 year cycle. The Champions trophy was held once every two years till 2006; once the World T20 came along, and took the cricketing world by storm, it was shifted to a 4 year cycle (with the World T20 being staged every 2 years). Now, all 4 slots for international tournaments have been filled shut.

One of the complaints about the premier World Cup tournament was that it had become a bloated circus, with the initial rounds holding little interest; that the Champions trophy was held only between the top-8 ODI cricketing nations didn’t help matters either.  It was weird that the less prestigious tournament had “better” cricketing contests and was “refreshing” compared to the World Cup. We don’t see these complaints in, say, tennis, do we? That a year-end tournament or Masters is better to watch compared to the Grand Slam?

With this in mind, the ICC approved the World Test Championship in 2010. Along with it, it also resolved to shorten the ODI tournament, enlarge the World T20, and have a one-day cricket league. Since the ODI format had two tournaments in the four year cycle, the Champions trophy seemed to be on the chopping block. There was a false start in 2013, but it was decided that by 2017, the World Test Championship would replace the Champions trophy.

This is when things got even more interesting.

We are the Champions: The commercial success of the Champions trophy gave it a new lease of life after India lifted the trophy in 2013. Image source: 2.

The (then last) 2013 Champions trophy was a resounding success. The numbers were bound to be good, with India winning it. The World Test Championship now ran into serious problems at the multiple levels.

One of the biggest problems (and charms) of test cricket is its uncertainity. Test matches are supposed to last five days, and very often they finish well before the scheduled finish. At one point of time, players were not paid for the fifth day when the match finished early.

What happens to spectators who buy tickets for the fifth day (there is a refund policy in some places)? What happens to broadcasters who’ve bought ad slots for astronomical sums, but now there are no eyeballs on TV? What would be the format of the test championship? One-off test? Series? Home or away? Location? Which team progresses in the case of a draw? Imagine the scale of confusion when one of the ideas suggested was to play the final in a timeless format.

If the 1939 match was cast aside as a draw since the England team had to catch the boat back home, and the format abandoned due to scheduling and commercial aspects, what chance did this idea have in this era of 140 characters? When the Champions trophy succeeded, it was an easy choice to make. Back to square one again.

The ICC has now proposed a 2 year league system, but it must understand that test cricket is in danger. Just recently, it was revealed that 19 out of the top 20 programs (not just sports programs, mind you) in India were T20 games (both international and IPL).  What was worrying was that Test cricket in India was on a downward viewership spiral, and T20 was on the rise (in spite of viewer fatigue and paucity of test cricket). All said and done, the T20 format is a limited one—where one does not have to dismiss the side in order to win the match. Granted, the compromise of limited overs over dismissing a side for victory was started by the ODI; but, what it has done is to diminish the value of the bowler—the one who can dismiss the batsman who has no compulsion to score. Eventually, the money will talk.

Perhaps, the glib attitude to test cricket comes down to the very findings of the Stuart Robertson-ECB survey in 2001, which led to the birth of the T20: that cricket was viewed as a sport of the elites, out of tune with modern temporal demands; young fans were not picking up the game, there was dwindling viewership and cricket was ceding ground to football.

Though this may not be music to test match cricket fans (like me), we have to accept that T20 is the only format which is in tune with our day jobs. Who can afford to take a five day holiday to watch one match of test cricket? It isn’t a surprise that the test summer schedule in traditional bastions like England and Australia have hence been invaded by domestic T20 tournaments.

Credit must be given to T20 cricket for giving a formula to make fans flock to a stadium/TV to watch domestic cricket. And, a leaf can be taken from their book as well. In order for test cricket to survive and thrive, it needs to be played actively by many teams of high skill, in a close set of matches. It is perhaps time for test cricket to be subsidized by a franchise level, league and knockout, 3-format cricket alongside international matches. Intra-national cricketing logistics would be far simpler to handle compared to international matches.

Conceivably, if the franchises were to compete for a grand prize where test cricket results contribute majorly to the points, and if their right to play the top-level, money spinner T20 format is threatened by relegation, no type of cricketing skill would be neglected.

Disclaimer: The images used are not property of this blog. The copyright, if any, rests with the respective owners.

 

 

Problems with the newly proposed test league

The Big Three rollback: ICC announced sweeping changes to its revenue distribution and international fixtures in its recent meeting. Image source:1.

At the end of last week, the Chief Executives Committee of the ICC met up in Dubai. At the end of their two day meeting, they came up with a radical proposal to change the framework of the international calendar. Of course, it wasn’t the big ticket item of discussion which dominated the headlines; that would be the dismantling of the “Big Three” proposal. This piece of news didn’t dominate the headlines as much, but has wide ranging ramifications for the way the game will be played once the new schedule comes into effect.

One of the topmost items on every cricket fan and players’ wish lists was a fixture list which provided “context”. Take for instance, football. Barring the Olympic Games, there are mainly three types of fixtures on the international scene—the friendly, the qualifying tournament, and the big tournament. Nowadays, the handful international friendlies are often viewed as an annoying moratorium on club matches. They only serve the purpose of trying out new players, and raking in the moolah in the case of a marquee fixture in a foreign land (say, Brazil vs Argentina in America). Each of the other games have a relevance in terms of the big prize—The World cup, The Euro and their ilk (although they have lost their sheen to the Champions league recently, but that is another discussion altogether).

In contrast, cricket banks on several meaningless (especially ODI) series, which only seem to serve the purpose of plugging in sponsors and getting some ranking points. In fact, these didn’t have a major consequence until recently (West Indies have not made the 2017 Champions trophy cut).

On the face of it, this sounds like a plan with its heart in the right place with respect to test cricket: 9 teams play each other over a period of two years, culminating with a playoff between the top two teams. The lower ranked teams (Zimbabwe, Ireland and Afghanistan) are not ignored either—each “top” team would play at least one “lower” team during the cycle.

For a league to be fair, each team has to face every other twice (once home and once away)—just like the current four year FTP cycle. This means that each team needs to play the eight teams over a minimum of 16 test matches over two years. Not much of a lifestyle change from the current fixture list. The 13 team ODI league is also doable. So far, so good.

However, when one crunches the numbers, it is easy to see that the implementation of the test match schedules is fraught with uncertainity. Factor into the travel considerations, and this is where things start to get a wee bit crazy. The ICC has defined a tour as at least one match. Would a board send its team half way across the world for just one test match? Remember, the last time when India toured South Africa, a two-test series didn’t exactly whet the appetite. Even if all teams play two test matches against each other home and away, it makes it 16(!) tests for a calendar year. Throw in one more test for the “lower” teams, and fixtures from two more formats you know how unrealistic this schedule sounds.

The ICC has factored this to its credit, and has stipulated that the two consecutive two year test cycles would be complements of each other. That is, if India tours Sri Lanka in one, the reverse fixture would happen in the next cycle. This is what is followed in the Ranji trophy, and the Europa league. But would this provide parity to all teams when a prestigious, yet-to-be-constituted trophy is at stake?

Then there is the problem of number of match-ups: The IPL has 14 matches for each team in the league phase, the EPL—38. Here, teams are free to decide the length of a tour bilaterally. How would you equate a 5 test series with a 2 test series?  Can a short test series be fair considering teams may not be able to acclimatize easily? What happens if India refuses to play Pakistan? How many points will it be docked? More importantly, how will the results be taken into account considering that home teams have won at home more often recently than every other decade barring the 1870s? By the way, the 1870s had only three matches.

In fact, the damning blow to this arrangement could come in the form of the actual schedule itself. Out of the 9 countries, England are on an April-September schedule, West Indies are on a March-August timetable, and the rest follow an October-March calendar.

Typically, a test team hosts two teams and tours two countries during a year. England wouldn’t be able to tour West Indies in the second half as it would clash with its own home season—it would not be able to host one team at home in that case. If you thought this was bad, spare a thought for the West Indies. They compete with 7 countries in March; with the IPL in April-May; and with England in June-August.

With all this thrown in, when will the ICC have the playoff? In June at Lord’s? Or would it ignore its mythology and its primacy altogether by hosting it at the end of the calendar year in one of the 7 countries? Will a crowd turn up to watch a “neutral” test match in any part of the world?

All things considered, this model raises more questions than answers.

Disclaimer: The images used are not property of this blog. The copyright, if any, rests with the respective owners.