Galle: Australia’s victorious cricketers in Sri Lanka and Melbourne awoke on Sunday to hear that England and India wanted to rip up the World Test Championship and start again.
“It is fully understood that the current structure does not work in the way it should, and we need to find a fairer, better competition,” ECB chair Richard Thompson told the London Telegraph. “We have five months to work on this, step back and look at what the structure should be going forward. The World Test Championship should be fairer and more competitive.”
Australian spectators watch the first Test from the ramparts of the Galle fort.Credit: Getty Images
Well may England and India say that Test cricket appears unfair at the moment. Changing the system by which a WTC is played is where those two nations excel, via the game’s political and financial corridors. Perish the thought of South Africa reaching the WTC final ahead of them!
But whatever changes India and England make, with the probable acquiescence of Cricket Australia, will likely be clocked by Pat Cummins’ team and adjusted to for the purposes of winning once more.
“We look forward to working with the ICC to ensure the World Test Championship is as strong and competitive as possible, that Test cricket continues to thrive and remains the pinnacle format, and that countries that have less financial resources are supported,” a CA spokesperson said.
Cricket’s founding nation and its financial powerhouse have both, frankly, been left panting in the dust lately, as Australia have reasserted their standing as cricket’s equivalent of Brazil.
Australia is neither the biggest nation playing cricket, nor the place where the game was born. But its prominence over nearly 150 years has been based largely on the exploits of its teams. And its place at the decision-making table should be led by putting the game, not the money nor the politics, first.
That’s why the symmetry of two Test victories being secured within a minute of each other on opposite sides of the world was so fitting.
Annabel Sutherland, Alana King and Beth Mooney became their first Australian women to have their names embossed on the honour boards in the MCG changerooms after their heroics in the Ashes Test that finished on Saturday.Credit: Cricket Australia
At the MCG, Alyssa Healy’s side rode on the coattails of magnificent performances by Alana King and Annabel Sutherland, who alongside Beth Mooney wrote their names onto the ground’s honour board for Test matches.
To watch King run rings around a ponderous and error-riddled England was to rejoice in leg spin bowling, one of the skills that Australian cricket has played a huge role in keeping alive over the years.
Not only through Shane Warne, but via the likes of Richie Benaud, Clarrie Grimmett, Bill O’Reilly and Arthur Mailey. All those wrist spinners would have been proud to bowl the ripping delivery that King fizzed past Sophia Dunkley to hit the top of the off stump.
King was central to a 16-0 multi-format crunching of England, demonstrating why Lisa Sthalekar called her “the hottest property” in the women’s game. Australia briefly misstepped by leaving King out of its Twenty20 World Cup side last year, arguably costing them a chance to win the tournament. But that pain was quickly channelled into a right royal hammering of England.
In Galle, meanwhile, Australia dismantled Sri Lanka so comprehensively that it was easy to fall into the trap of thinking this was a meaningless or routine result.
But that would be to disregard too many years of history here, where Sri Lanka have tripped up many a nation. In 2024, they humbled New Zealand a week or so before the Black Caps upset India in India. And Sri Lanka contended for the WTC final for far longer than England did.
Alana King produces a brilliant ball to dismiss Sophia Dunkley.Credit: Channel Seven
Past members of the great Australian sides of the 1990s and early 2000s have occasionally confided that they would have liked to play in the current setup because Cummins, deputy Steve Smith and head coach Andrew McDonald have fostered an environment that is high in skill and poise but low on anger and tension.
That approach is well suited to overseas tours, and scoffing from other countries about drawn series, in England in particular, tends to avoid the overall picture.
Since the start of Cummins’ captaincy in 2021, Australia have won 24 Test matches and lost just seven. England (22 wins, 17 losses) and India (17 wins, 13 losses) have inferior winning ratios in that time not only to Australia, but also to South Africa (16 wins and nine defeats) despite the Proteas’ much publicised struggles to keep their Test program alive.
Given the disparity in resources and playing talent between England, India and South Africa, that is a rather embarrassing state of affairs. So too, the fact that the inaugural winners of the WTC were New Zealand.
England’s captain Ben Stokes has been a leading critic of the WTC, calling it “weird” and “utterly confusing” while at the same time wanting to be characterised as a saviour of Test cricket via the “Bazball” brand of play.
Stokes’ arguments don’t stand up next to the facts of the past few years, that have seen more competitiveness in Test cricket, more surprise results and more contenders for the global trophy.
Shamar Joseph in Brisbane, Pathum Nissanka at the Oval, and Mitchell Santner in India all made their marks on the red ball game.
The world tuned in on South Africa’s chase for a fourth innings target against Pakistan at Centurion late last year in the knowledge that victory would lead to qualification among as many as five contending teams. Before 2019, Test cricket had never seen anything even remotely like this.
But Stokes’ criticism has now reached a level of cricket’s hierarchy where the WTC may well be recast into something more amenable to England’s wishes. When Thompson says “competitive” and “fair”, he means more competitive and fair for Stokes and McCullum, not for South Africa, Sri Lanka or New Zealand.
Winning matches and series will still be the key to success, though. On that level, with two Test victories within 60 seconds of each other, Australia stands supreme.
