With Brian Lara clinking bottles of champagne together in the bowels of the Gabba watching a triumphant West Indian press conference and itching to celebrate one of the greatest wins in Caribbean cricket, so began an extraordinary year of Test cricket.
Twelve months ago Shamar Joseph dragged himself out of bed with a busted toe and dragged the West Indies to a stunning eight-run upset.
At almost the exact same time, England upset India in equally thrilling fashion and their Bazballing ways made for Indian, Pakistan and New Zealand tours that never looked like straying toward boring.
Due to the self-declared saviours of the game’s longest format, runs have never been scored faster than Test cricket’s 3.62 an over last year.
New Zealand whitewashed India on their own turf, Bangladesh beat Pakistan at home and South Africa rose to the World Test championship final with a nerve-jangling Boxing Day Test win over Pakistan.
Again, with the same festive timing, Australia and India filled the no-man’s land between Christmas and New Year’s with one of the best Tests in recent memory, the highpoint of a series that delivered record crowds and TV ratings.
The finest sight in cricket: A fifth-day, final session thriller.Credit: Getty Images
Next year’s Ashes will be an even bigger, and probably, an even more dramatic affair, but cricket in Australia has enjoyed a fine 12 months full-stop.
Ratings for a mercifully condensed Big Bash are up 20 per cent and average regular season crowds of 22,433 are the highest since 2017-18.
Enthusiasm for the game has prompted Channel Seven to pick up the rights for the two-Test Sri Lankan tour, the first non-Ashes overseas Tests shown on free-to-air since 1997.
Yet upcoming talks around the five-day game’s future – with splitting Test cricket into two tiers firmly on the agenda – shape as seismic.
A two-tiered future?
Possible seven-team first division for Test cricket: South Africa, Australia, England, India, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
Second division: West Indies, Bangladesh, Ireland, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe.
As noted by respected Indian commentator Harsha Bhogle on ABC during a rollicking SCG Test: “Everywhere I go, I have to tell people that cricket in Australia is a beautiful illusion.
“Test cricket is a beautiful illusion. Because I see cricket around the world, and I do not see this kind of support for Test cricket anywhere.”
Because India is cricket’s epicentre, and Twenty20 is both the sport’s financial backbone and vehicle for expansion to the Olympics and lucrative frontiers like the US and Saudi Arabia, the big three of India, Australia and England will lead the tier discussion with new ICC chair Jay Shah (who previously held the same role for the BCCI).
The prospect of more blockbuster series between the three leading nations – for some, the overwhelming benefit of a two-tier system – has broadcasters and bean-counters giddy.
Already, England, India and Australia play more Tests than any other nation, against each other more than anyone else. The World Cricketers Association has already argued there’s too much big-three cricket as it is.
But rejigging the schedule beyond 2027 for the trio to play as many as 30 Tests (based on five-Test, home-and-away series) between themselves in a three-year cycle is a genuine possibility in a two-tier system.
The killer for “the rest” – ICC full members South Africa, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, West Indies, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe – is their own home Test series are almost always loss-making ventures unless they’re hosting one of the big three.
Hence South Africa sending a second-string Test team to New Zealand at the start of 2024 while its best stayed home and played in the new SA20 tournament, the IPL-aligned league that turned a desperately needed profit four years ahead of schedule.
Every cricketing board is wary of the rapid rise in T20 leagues and the scramble for players and calendar space.
The West Indies have had players choosing T20 lucre over Tests for almost two decades, to the point outgoing ICC chair Greg Barclay wondered recently whether “the West Indies in its current form sustainable? Is it time for them to break into each of their islands?”
In reality, India, England and Australia are the only ones with the clout and resources to halt what Barclay described in the same London Telegraph exit interview as a game “sleep-walking to the edge of the cliff”.
The split of Test nations into divisions has been floated previously at ICC level, before the long-time-coming World Test championship model added context and stake to bilateral contests.
hamar Joseph and Brian Lara celebrate the West Indies first win on Australian soil in 27 years at the Gabba.Credit: Cricket Australia via Getty Images
Proponents range from Michaels Vaughan and Atherton to Ravi Shastri and West Indies icon Michael Holding – on the condition that genuine promotion and relegation is an inbuilt feature of any tiered system.
Holding’s suggestion of two divisions of six sides each requires the top teams to tour division two sides at least once in a three or four-year cycle.
Using Australia as an example, it would be a marked increase on their current rate of playing away Tests against the likes of South Africa (last visited in 2018), Bangladesh (2017) and the West Indies (2015). Though it must be said, June’s upcoming Caribbean jaunt has been bolstered to a three-Test series thanks in no small part to the Gabba victory that drew tears from the likes of Lara and Carl Hooper as they watched on.
The devil will always be in the detail of any tiered system. As Nathan Lyon pointed out when asked his thoughts: “At the moment England were recently [ranked] seventh [based on current WTC standings]. Does that mean they’re in tier two?
Anticipation for the 2025 Ashes is already building.Credit: AP
“I can’t really see England going to tier two. Test cricket – as a leading nation, we probably have a role to play. Whether that’s trying to potentially play different teams at different times of the year, I can’t really see it working, if I’m being honest.”
A greater spread of cricket’s wealth has long been put to its greatest powers.
With India staking a 38 per cent claim of the ICC’s latest $US4 billion ($6 billion) rights deal for its events, the balance of power will always rest with the superpower that generates more revenue than any other cricketing nation could ever dream of.
The fear is the next cycle of Test cricket, whatever it looks like, would only further the monopoly of funding and scheduling already in play.
Cricket Australia chair Mike Baird has made the right noises about exploring financial equalisation toward smaller nations.
Incoming CA chief executive Todd Greenberg is lying low until he takes office in March. But in his previous role as head of the Australian Cricketers Association, regularly described the juncture of Tests and T20s (not to forget the ugly ODI cousin) as cricket’s single biggest issue.
2024 made for an enthralling year of Test match fare and one of the best on record.
2025 could shore up the format’s future. Or undermine it even further.
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