Burgey
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Bill Lawry was on Sydney radio station 2KY this morning.
In a pretty interesting chat, he described Shane Warne's call for Michael Clarke to replace Gilly as vice-captain now as "a joke" because Clarke still has to cement his place in the test side (fair point too imo).
When asked about the future of test cricket, Lawry indicated his belief that there should be a two-tier system in tests with promotion and relegation. He wasn't asked to elaborate on detailed structure, but I thought this idea may have some merit, despite there being some problems with it.
There are currently ten test-playing countries. If the ICC set up a points-type system (and they already rank the sides) over home-and away series for a (say) 3 or 4 year period, could the top 2 sides from the second tier go up, and the bottom 2 from the top tier go down?
This system may achieve a greater eveness of competition between countries, whilst the incentive of promotion/ not being demoted may inspire teams to consistently play at something approaching their best.
I see several real problems, of course. The first is the revenue which might be lost to some of the more struggling nations in missing out on having the better sides come and tour their countries and generating revenue from gate takings. Could the ICC come to the party here by having some of the richer nations fostering international development by subsidising lesser-developed countries?
Second is the time involved - waiting 3 or 4 years for promotion is a long time, it's not like the EPL football where teams go up and down every season and have an almost immediate chance to get promoted the following year.
Third is how do you improve the quality of play in the sides in the second tier if they are not coming up against better quality opposition and learning to cope with the pressures whcih that entails?
I'm sure there are lots of other complexities, but in any event it's something which should be discussed imo.
In a pretty interesting chat, he described Shane Warne's call for Michael Clarke to replace Gilly as vice-captain now as "a joke" because Clarke still has to cement his place in the test side (fair point too imo).
When asked about the future of test cricket, Lawry indicated his belief that there should be a two-tier system in tests with promotion and relegation. He wasn't asked to elaborate on detailed structure, but I thought this idea may have some merit, despite there being some problems with it.
There are currently ten test-playing countries. If the ICC set up a points-type system (and they already rank the sides) over home-and away series for a (say) 3 or 4 year period, could the top 2 sides from the second tier go up, and the bottom 2 from the top tier go down?
This system may achieve a greater eveness of competition between countries, whilst the incentive of promotion/ not being demoted may inspire teams to consistently play at something approaching their best.
I see several real problems, of course. The first is the revenue which might be lost to some of the more struggling nations in missing out on having the better sides come and tour their countries and generating revenue from gate takings. Could the ICC come to the party here by having some of the richer nations fostering international development by subsidising lesser-developed countries?
Second is the time involved - waiting 3 or 4 years for promotion is a long time, it's not like the EPL football where teams go up and down every season and have an almost immediate chance to get promoted the following year.
Third is how do you improve the quality of play in the sides in the second tier if they are not coming up against better quality opposition and learning to cope with the pressures whcih that entails?
I'm sure there are lots of other complexities, but in any event it's something which should be discussed imo.
