World Test Championship is the ICC’s attempt to give additional context to bilateral test cricket, in an era that has been overtaken by franchise sports. Participation is limited to the top nine teams in a given cycle, ensuring that every Test carries significance. The final is meant to be the apex of the format, analogous to the World Cup finals in both one-day international and T20 cricket.
South Africa’s victory over Australia in the WTC final at Lord’s on Saturday ended years of tournament heartache for the Proteas. The result also reaffirmed the value of red-ball cricket and the need to preserve it as an integral part of the sport.
Nevertheless, the competition is flawed in various ways. For starters, it seems rankly unfair that two of the three showpiece finals have been won by teams outside cricket’s supposedly Big Three powerhouses. This undermines the credibility of the WTC Final as a showdown between supposedly the world’s best teams.
Moreover, the ICC’s current qualification system for the WTC is too complicated. Australia, England and India each play five-Test series against each other, which are high-quality, exciting and lucrative but can be tiring for smaller teams that must also play other richer nations. The WTC final is thus a rare moment in which these nations can face each other without the distraction of lesser opposition. A better solution is a two-division model, proposed by Australia’s CA and supported by the ECB.