{"id":89516,"date":"2021-06-23T01:24:12","date_gmt":"2021-06-23T01:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=89516"},"modified":"2021-06-23T03:00:31","modified_gmt":"2021-06-23T03:00:31","slug":"disaster-should-force-massive-cricket-rethink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=89516","title":{"rendered":"'Disaster' should force massive cricket rethink"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Australian captain Mark Taylor<\/a> concedes a drawn World Test Championship final<\/a> is far from ideal, with the match between India and New Zealand appearing to have little chance of producing a result.<\/a><\/p>\n

Rain has wrecked<\/a> what should have been the showpiece event of the inaugural series, with India leading by 32 runs with eight second-innings wickets in hand, heading into the sixth and final day.<\/a><\/p>\n

With the two sides to share the spoils in the event of a drawn final, Taylor said consideration should be given to playing future finals until a result is produced.<\/p>\n

"That's worth thinking about, but if you make it a timeless Test maybe put some structure around it, because you don't want teams grinding out a first innings of 900 on a road," he told Wide World of Sports.<\/p>\n

"Maybe you put a restriction of 150 overs on each innings to stop sides batting forever, something along those lines, people will say you're compromising the game but I don't think you are.<\/p>\n

"They naysayers will say you can have really exciting draws, and you can, but in a one-off final, you want to make sure there's every chance of a result."<\/p>\n

The World Test Championship has endured a difficult beginning, with complaints over the points system, to the fact that each team didn't play every other team during the qualification period.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But Taylor says the concept is worth persisting with, despite the less than satisfactory ending on this occasion.<\/p>\n

"When I saw the first day of the final was washed out, and with the weather forecast suggesting more rain, I thought straight away that it was unfortunately going to be a disaster," he said.<\/p>\n

"I like the thinking behind it, it's based on trying to make Test cricket more attractive and allowing it to compete with other forms of the game that are taking over.<\/p>\n

"It's like day-night Test cricket. If it means more people are going to stay interested in Test cricket, that's a good thing. It may not be Test cricket like you remember from 30-40 years ago but it's Test cricket.<\/p>\n

"The choice is keeping Test cricket the same until eventually nobody watches it, or adapting it to move with the times and keeping it relevant."<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Another former Australian captain, Ian Chappell<\/a>, is also keen to see the idea continue but in a slightly modified form.<\/p>\n

"I think you need to find a window, they've got a window for every other damn thing," he told Wide World of Sports.<\/p>\n

"I'm pretty sure October in the UAE is pretty good and the weather shouldn't be a problem. It's not a bad timezone for most of the world and it's between the seasons for both the northern and southern hemispheres.<\/p>\n

"What I'd do is play semi-finals as well as a final. If you're going to do it, do it properly."<\/p>\n

Chappell noted that he first advocated a World Test Championship as far back as 1991. He participated in a conference in 1999, under the direction of then-ICC boss Jagmohan Dalmiya, to thrash out concepts for such a competition.<\/p>\n

"I reckon we worked out you could get it done in about 65 days, which was every nation playing every other nation," he explained.<\/p>\n

"I'm not against that but I'm a pragmatist, and the chances of them doing that and reducing the number of days that are available for another T20 competition, well, it's just not going to happen."<\/p>\n

Chappell explained that the tournament could be streamlined further by putting in place more stringent qualifying procedures.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"If you had every nation playing each other, I'd limit the numbers. It's ridiculous to have Afghanistan and Ireland and Zimbabwe, and I'd almost include Bangladesh in that," he said.<\/p>\n

"Maybe you have a qualifying period to get down to six nations, because there's probably only about six nations who can realistically win it.<\/p>\n

"Then you could have a round-robin, which shouldn't get too many complaints."<\/p>\n

With COVID-19 forcing the cancellation of a number of series, Australia didn't play Bangladesh, South Africa, West Indies or Sri Lanka in the 2019-2021 World Test Championship.<\/p>\n

Chappell says if the current system is to be maintained, with the series spread out over a number of years, more effort should be made to ensure each team plays all other teams, although he admits he won't be holding his breath waiting for it to happen.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"That's the ideal scenario, the scheduling should have been looked at years ago, it's been a shemozzle for years," he explained.<\/p>\n

"But it will never happen as long as you haven't got a single body doing the scheduling.<\/p>\n

"While you've got all the Test nations sitting around the table, everyone is looking at India and wanting to play them every time there's a gap.<\/p>\n

"It will always be a mess as long as you've got that situation."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/em><\/strong> clicking here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Australian captain Mark Taylor concedes a drawn World Test Championship final is far from ideal, with the match between India and New Zealand appearing […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89516"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89516"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89518,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89516\/revisions\/89518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}