Abu Dhabi, day one

It was a very odd day’s cricket, but England at least shaded it if not won it outright. The day started by England looking like they were going to play both Monty and Finn for long enough to get my hopes up that we were finally going to go with five bowlers, but ultimately only playing Monty. I thought it was a terrible decision at the time; not playing Monty as such, but playing him as part of a four man attack. To me, only having two seamers is too few. It was not as bad as I had thought, England bowled very well, but there were times in the long partnership in the afternoon session in which I think another seam bowler would have been very useful. (Certainly I think he would have been more useful than Morgan batting at six.) But the decision to bowl two spinners looked like a masterstroke during the morning. Swann and Monty bowled in tandem and each picked up a wicket on a pitch that looked like a road.

It was the pitch that was the most unusual aspect of the day. At the start it looked like a flat, fill-your-boots pitch. On TMS Boycott said that England would do fantastically to keep them to 350. As the two spinners took wickets it looked like it might take a lot of turn but there would be nothing in it for the seamers. Broad and Anderson made a mockery of that, however, getting the ball to nip back off the seam and extracting copious amounts of movement with the second new ball. Were it not for three dropped catches (two of them sitters) England would probably already be batting having only conceded about 230. All of which suggests that the pitch was misread at the start, which it probably was, but I don’t think it was so badly misread as to render Pakistan’s total anywhere close to average. To suggest that 256-7 is not a bad total would be to imply that the pitch is as treacherous as the average English wicket in May, which I do not think is true at all. I think the better explanation is that the pitch had a little bit more life in it than was expected, but England simply bowled very, very well. They could have done better, but on a pitch that has seen two high scoring draws and on a still flat looking wicket it was a very good show.

Misbah and Shafiq showed in the afternoon just how easy batting could be. They looked very comfortable as the older ball did not do a lot and could easily blunt England’s attack. (This is where I thought it was a man short.) Their partnership was only ended when Shafiq got himself out with a suicidal mow just before the new ball was due. There’s no guarantee that England’s batsmen won’t go out tomorrow and play the same shot, but with most of them one would back them to have learnt better. (Perhaps not with KP.) Especially with a day of sun on it the pitch will probably be better for batting tomorrow and I think England will back themselves to get at least 400 whenever they get their turn to bat. Depending on how many Pakistan get tomorrow morning (and Misbah is still in to bat with the tail) England should have enough of a lead to put them in the driving seat for the rest of the match.

Today was hard to read, but tomorrow should clarify matters. Usually that means I’ll look like an idiot, mind, but hopefully not this time.

Abu Dhabi preview

In about nine hours, England will start a match that might be considered ‘must-win’ for the first time since the final Test of the 2009 Ashes. England have not actually trailed in a series since the 51 all out debacle in the West Indies three years ago, and have only played a Test at 1-1 twice. Both of those were against Australia and both were famous victories. Unfortunately for England, they might find themselves in a situation more closely related to that of the West Indies, where three shirtfronts stymied the attempted comeback. It will be interesting to see how England cope with the pressure now; one of their greatest strengths in the last few years has been winning early and keeping the pressure off. They have coped admirably in the few times when there has been real pressure on them, however, and I am backing them to do the same here.

England will be without the services of Chris Tremlett after he had a recurrence of his back/side problems that kept him out for the latter half of the summer. Whilst it’s a disappointment for him, I think it’s no bad thing for England; I suggested that he ought to be dropped anyway and I was far from alone. There have been conflicting reports on who is going to take his place. I’ve heard some say that Onions is the front runner, whilst others have said it’s a late choice between Finn and Monty based on the conditions. It’s no secret that I’ve backed Onions for a few months now, so I’m hoping he gets the nod. I would not at all be disappointed to see Finn though. He’s a good bowler and tends to take a lot of wickets, I just think Onions is better suited to the conditions.

The batting looks likely to be unchanged, though I don’t think anyone thought that England would make any alterations without being forced by injury to do so. It will be Strauss and Cook’s 100th opening partnership, though they have not bee very prolific over the past year. On a flat deck this may be a good opportunity for them to bring the landmark up in some style, though the first session of the match has not been kind to batsmen in the previous two Tests. England will probably bat first no matter what. I expect Strauss to back himself and his fellows to make runs, but Pakistan have a history of inserting opponents so either way we should see Strauss and Cook walk out to the middle first up. If they can survive the first hour or two they should be able to book in for bed and breakfast, as they say. If they can give the bowlers something at which to bowl I definitely think they can put themselves in a position to win the match. Even on a flat deck it will be hard for Pakistan to amass a huge total; this probably going to be the same English attack that only conceded 550 in two innings on the Adelaide road a year ago. Pakistan can bat better than Australia, but I think they’ll still struggle to get to 400.

The worry for England will be a high scoring draw that will cost them a chance to win the series. Strauss is an inherently defensive captain and we saw him failing to force the issue a couple of times during the series against Sri Lanka in the summer. The rain, which was the biggest factor in those draws, will not come into play this time, but Strauss still must attack more than he usually does. England can lay down a marker by winning this series, but to do that they need to go all out to win this Test.

Adelaide, day one

There was probably no need to actually watch the cricket today. (And actually I didn’t watch the entire day, I wanted to see some of the tennis too.) India played the same way they did in England and the same way they did for most of the first three Tests in Australia though. Once again they looked like they cared for about a session and after they had bowled for longer than they would in a limited overs match they seemed to give up and wait for the declaration. It was a flat deck, but after they had got the top three out in the morning they had a chance if they had applied some more pressure. It was not on an atypical Adelaide wicket that England reduced Australia to 2-3 and eventually 245 all out. Australia were only 82 runs better off when they lost their third wicket this time, but India never looked like they were going to press home that advantage. Clarke and Ponting deserve credit though; they batted imperiously for two and a bit sessions in an unbroken stand of over 250.

Part of India’s malaise is almost certainly down to the fact that Virender Sehwag was the captain. It rather surprised me when it was announced that he was to captain the side for this Test as it did not require precognitive powers (not that I have them, or that such powers even exist) to guess what was going to happen. They say that a captain sets the example and I shudder to think what sort of example Sehwag sets. He must be one of the laziest Test cricketers in the world, perhaps even one of the laziest cricketers full stop. The Chuck-Fleetwood Smiths once described his fielding as ‘with a deck chair drinking a piña colada‘ and as far as I can tell that’s his default setting. He absolutely failed to inspire the team in any way when they had been in the field all day and I very much doubt anyone is surprised by that.

India have been so poor in this series that I have almost run out of ways to describe them without getting repetitive. Their only hope in this match is that the pitch is so flat their batsmen can get a few runs and they can draw the game. True Indian fans may hope that doesn’t happen though. Despite the multitude of excuses for their poor form, there are starting to be a few high profile voices calling for major change to the side. India must heed those calls if they are to improve and there is no more effective way to make sure they are ignored than for their batsmen to make enough runs to save the game. If that happens then the media and many fans will say that everything is good again in India and they will continue to say so right up until (and possibly after) they are hammered by England in November.

New Zealand v Zimbabwe preview

It’s another one-off Test between these two, following the one in Zimbabwe a few months ago. The Kiwis wont that one, and on form they should certainly do the double next week. There are still a lot holes in their side though, and the historic victory over a weak Australia should not disguise that.

The Kiwis well make at least two, probably three, changes to the side that won at Hobart. Jesse Ryder and Reece Young have been left out of the squad, the former due to the calf injury that he sustained in Zimbabwe. Young might feel a bit hard done by; he has been dropped for his batting after some very solid glovework. I think the selectors can justify the decision though, their top order never really fired in Australia and some insurance down the order (in addition to Vettori). BJ Watling and Kruger van Wyk are the two possible replacements and are both playing in the current warmup match. Watling looks like the front runner at the moment, being run out for 84 as opposed to van Wyk’s nick behind for five. The other likely change for the Kiwis is Vettori’s presumed return after being injured for the Hobart Test. As well as New Zealand bowled there I cannot see them not bringing Vettori back in place of one of the seamers. Trent Boult originally came into the side in place of Vettori, so he is most likely to miss out. That said, he arguably out-bowled Southee at Hobart and this pitch is likely to be similar. It will be interesting to see what the selectors do before the Test.

Zimbabwe very nearly beat New Zealand last time these two sides met, but I think they’ll have a lot more trouble in the less batting friendly conditions. They have not played in properly foreign conditions in several years now and I don’t think one warmup match will be enough for them. They might be able to knock the Kiwis over cheaply in one of the innings, but I don’t think their batsmen will adjust quickly enough. They also have the disadvantage of not having played since that match against New Zealand at the beginning of November.

I think the match will be a low scoring affair, but a good innings by the Kiwis (probably anchored by a Vettori ton) will be enough to give them a relatively comfortable win. I think the margin of victory will be about 150 runs.

Saturday review – 21 Jan

It’s been a rather dismal week for England. There aren’t many worse ways to start a series than a three day defeat and England will have to play much, much better in the next two Tests to get anything out of this series. The match was also notable for controversies about Saeed Ajmal’s delivery action and the DRS. For once though the cricket actually overshadowed everything else, which is good. Other things happened elsewhere in cricket, but to be honest I was not paying that much attention. I gather that the BBL overcame it’s uncertain start and sold a shedload of tickets at the Waca though. Good for it. In better news, Andy Murray eased into the round of 16 at the Australian open with three pretty convincing wins. He’s still set to face Djokovic in the semis though, so no doubt he’ll be Scottish before the end of next week.

All of the good articles this week were about the England’s defeat, as indeed were most of the bad articles. (Someone somewhere may have written about Australia v India, but surely no one still cares about that?) My favourites were:

The Teesra and other variations – Alan Tyers, The Cricketer
(As amusing as one would expect from the author.)

Jonathan Agnew’s BBC column

Andrew Strauss must lead inquiry into England’s batting failings – Vic Marks, the Guardian

Test Match Special suffers along with England in Dubai – Adam Mountford, BBC

All in a Spin – David Lloyd, Sky Sports

What changes should England make?

Very few, I think. The devil’s in the details, of course, otherwise this would just be a Tweet and not a full blog post. As I wrote yesterday, England’s problems were with the batting, but I don’t think any radical changes need to be made. It would be very out of character for either Strauss or Flower to make panic changes and I think that’s a good thing. It was one of the (many, many) differences between England and Australia a year ago that England only made one change that was not forced by injury. That said, the one change to drop Finn for Bresnan was a very successful one.

If England do want to make changes to the top six, one of the problems they face is that there is a surprising lack of batting depth in the squad. The only full time batsman in reserve is Ravi Bopara, though wicket-keeper Steve Davies has a first class average over 40. For all that I said about Eoin Morgan on the first and third days of the Test, I think to replace him with Bopara would be extremely foolish. Bopara has all the same problems that Morgan does, but he’s had several years now to in which to potentially overcome them and has failed to do so. Given that Morgan can play spin well (even if he does then get himself out) it seems incredibly unlikely that Bopara would represent an improvement. It would be possible to have Davies keep wicket and play Prior as a specialist batsman, but that would be gambling that Davies can out-bat Morgan and out-keep Prior. It’s possible that he could do both, but it is a big risk. If might be interesting to see how such a tactic plays out next time England have a dead rubber (hopefully not before June), but doing so in a vital Test would be ill-advised.

That does not mean that Morgan’s place is secure, however. There were many suggestions before the match that England play a fifth bowler in his place and his, and England’s, poor performance will only increase those calls. I’m still inclined to agree, although I don’t like the idea of shoring up a good bowling attack at the expense of a misfiring batting order. England’s top five, with the possible exception of KP, are better than they showed in Dubai and I think they ought to be backed to score runs on flat decks. In any case, the bowlers still showed an ability to score runs effectively so even without Bresnan a sixth batsman seems unnecessary. The bowlers were fantastic in difficult conditions, they restricted Pakistan to 338 all out on what still looked like a 400 wicket. If it had been in the first innings of the match instead of the second England would have been considered on top. That does not mean that another attacking option would go amiss, however. There were times, especially as the tail added over fifty on the third morning but also during the 100+ opening partnership, that a different type of bowler would have been very handy.

Even if England do not drop Morgan, I think Tremlett should be left out. (‘Rested’ if need be.) He was the least effective bowler for England; his tall bang-it-in style is not suited to the slow pitches. During the second morning Nasser Hussain was suggesting that he needed to pitch the ball up and try to skid if off the surface more. This is true, but it also describes very well the bowling of Graham Onions. He is a wicket-to-wicket bowler not too dissimilar to Junaid Khan who had great success against Sri Lanka. If England had him or Finn (who is also similar, but I don’t think as skiddy) in the attack in the first Test it would not have changed the result, but I think Pakistan would not have made as many runs as Strauss would have had something different at which to throw at their batsmen. I would definitely play at least one of them in Abu Dhabi. I would not play Monty, however. He performed very well in the warmup match, but I still don’t see him as an attacking option. I could be wrong of course, but especially in a four man attack I would prefer a fast bowler.

An interesting idea would be to drop KP for an extra bowler. He can take the match away from the opposition on his best day (see 202* at Lord’s) but more often he proves Boycott’s ‘not got a lot between the ears’ analysis correct. To drop him for a match may give his ego the kick it needs to make sure he comes out in the third Test and makes a couple of big scores. There’s no guarantee that he won’t come out in the second Test and make big scores, but I do not want to rely on him. It would be a brave move by England to drop him, but they have shown an ability to be brave before. My XI for the second Test is: Strauss*, Cook, Trott, Bell, Morgan, Prior†, Broad, Swann, Anderson, Finn, Onions. It gives an extra bowling option and is still not much of a tail. As far as what will happen (the above being only what I want to happen) the only change I would think likely would be to replace Tremlett with Finn, which I do think would be an improvement. I would prefer Onions, but Finn is above him in the pecking order and England like to stick to that.

Pakistan win by ten wickets

Today marks exactly 13 months since the end of the Perth test of the last Ashes series and England marked the occasion in an appropriate style. The first innings of this match was the first time we had been bowled out for under 200 since Perth and in a touching homage to the dual collapses of that match they only managed only 160 in the second innings here. Pakistan’s successful chase of 15 to win sealed England’s first defeat since that Perth Test as well.

As at Perth, the batsmen were the primary culprits in the defeat and today they were almost entirely culpable. The bowlers put in an admirable and impressive performance yesterday to keep the match within (theoretical) reach, but the batsmen threw it away completely. It was even the bowlers who avoided an innings defeat; Graeme Swann scored 39 and Jimmy Anderson had an unbeaten 15 to complement his 12 in the first innings. Graeme Swann actually scored more runs in the match than any of the top six batsmen and only one fewer than Matt Prior. Trott had a decent match too, he was unlucky to get out to a leg side strangle in the first innings, but looked composed for his 49 in the second. That said, he could have and probably should have stuck around to anchor an English resistance but got skittish with his half century looming and played an ill-disciplined shot outside off and was caught behind.

There may have been other victims of ill-fortune in the innings, Cook misplayed a hook for what seems like the first time in his career and I will have more on Strauss later, but by and large they have very little to excuse them. KP in particular needs to have someone take him by the collar and shout at him for a bit, or whatever it takes to make him realise the value of shot selection. His shot today was absolutely inexcusable; with England in trouble on 25-2 he came in and played a hook on nought and top edged the ball straight to the man at deep square leg. The fieldsman had been placed there for exactly that purpose in a ploy so transparent even a premiership footballer would have seen through it, but KP either missed it (very possible) or simply assumed he could beat it (also very possible). Either way it was one of the most stupid and irresponsible shots you will see, only Brad Haddin could hope to match it.

One of the consequences of the top order failure was that Eoin Morgan was given the chance to redeem himself for letting the side down in the first innings. Instead he played the exact same type of innings; he got in, looked settled and promising, then got out tamely. It is a continuation of a common theme; if the top five score well and put the side in a good position, Morgan can take the game away. When they fail, however, Morgan seems incapable of rescuing the side. Fortunately for Morgan and England the top order succeed a lot more often than they fail, but it does call into question the wisdom of having a batsman at number six who only scores runs when they are not needed. It is a very similar criticism to that which was levelled at Ian Bell for many years, but it wasn’t an unfounded criticism then and it isn’t now either. Bell worked on his temperament and is now one of England’s best batsmen. Morgan must do the same; right now he does not look like a Test calibre batsman. He must also do it quickly, as England have a very talented Lions squad and may not persist with Morgan for as long as they did with Bell.

I mentioned Strauss earlier; he was at the centre of a DRS controversy just before lunch. With England and Strauss each on six he tried to turn one down the leg side and was given out caught behind. Strauss reviewed it and the decision was upheld despite HotSpot showing nothing. Strauss may very well have been out, there was a noise and he took a bit of time in reviewing it, but that did not stop the predictable criticism of the DRS. The fact that Pakistan’s Saeed Ajmal had been similarly given out despite the review earlier in the day added fuel to the debate with many labelling it as evidence against the DRS. Except it was no such thing, of course. Both batsmen had been given out by the on field umpire, Billy Bowden in both cases; the DRS made no difference. Without the DRS they would both still have been given out, fairly or otherwise. If the decisions were incorrect (which is not at all clear, especially for Strauss) then the fault is with the umpire who made the decision and it makes no sense to use that as an argument for why we should not have a review system. Needless to say this did not stop people from claiming that the DRS gave Strauss out.

All the DRS and batting commotion aside, we are left with the fact that England are now 0-1 down with two Tests left. The next one will be at Abu Dhabi before they return to Dubai for the third. The worry for England will be that they will be tailored for draws, as we saw in the Windies in 2009. Fortunately, England are resilient; we saw that clearly yesterday, if not so much today. Before today England had only lost four Tests since Kingston 2009 and each time they won the next one emphatically. The only caveat to that is the innings defeat at Jo’burg in 2010 which was the last in the series. England followed that defeat with six consecutive wins, but the first four were against Bangladesh. England will hope that the comparisons with Perth continue, however; they followed that defeat with three consecutive innings victories. These are not just meaningless filler stats. England respond well to defeat. They are masters at analysing flaws and working to correct them. That is not a guarantee of success in Abu Dhabi, of course, but only someone who has not watched any cricket in the past three years would automatically write England off.

Dubai, first Test, day two

Yesterday we saw the worst of England, today we arguably saw the best. After the disappointment of not getting a wicket last night England still looked up for it in the field this morning, and troubled the batsmen early. Even when they did not pick up a wicket for the first ninety minutes of the morning session they did not let their heads drop and were rewarded with two before lunch.

England’s intensity never really abated today. It was clearly hard going in the field and England never instigated a proper collapse, but they kept at it and picked up wickets when they most needed them. Pakistan built several partnerships, but England put a handbrake on the scoring after lunch and although the batsmen occupied the crease for some time they never managed to up the scoring rate. To an extent this is how Pakistan, especially Misbah-ul-Haq, play all the time but England’s bowlers played a big role in that as well. They never lost their line, they never got desperate for a wicket they just kept probing away and waited for their reward. It was great to see and it is one of the reasons England are currently number one in the world. It also makes a sharp contrast to what we have seen in Australia with the Indian bowlers giving up as soon as a partnership has started to build. There are two stats in particular that I think show how well England bowled: Pakistan are 174-7 after their opening partnership and they only scored 75 in an evening session that was extended to get all the overs in. That’s under 2.5 an over for over two hours at a time when Pakistan would have wanted to put the game out of reach.

Pakistan deserve credit for accepting the slow rate of scoring instead of riskily trying to up the run rate (as we’ve seen from many other teams just before they collapsed). Their best batsman statistically was Mohammed Hafeez with his 88 at the top of the order, but I think the best innings was actually played by Misbah during that final session. Hafeez batted with the pressure mostly off; England were probing and testing, of course, but they had not yet found the right line and length and the going was more comfortable, especially as the shine was mostly off the ball by then. Misbah had to face the new ball at a time when Pakistan could easily have collapsed if he had got out though. When Jimmy Anderson removed Asad Shafiq Pakistan were only 39 runs in front with only the tail to come and a young, fairly unreliable batsmen at the crease in the form of the wicket-keeper. If England had got either of them out right then we might already be batting, but Misbah played very slowly, very deliberately and guided his partner through a very tough passage of play. He was eventually undone by Swann, but the partnership was worth what may be a very important 52.

The match is now set up quite well for the next three days. Pakistan could still get a very good first innings lead if the tail can stick around tomorrow morning, but England will be backing themselves to knock them over quickly. A lead of 150 may be too much for England, but that’s still a long way off with the bowlers on top of the batsmen. England’s batsmen are unlikely to recreate their heroics of Brisbane, but something similar could be on the cards. Certainly they are unlikely to bat as poorly as they did in the first innings, so if Pakistan are held to a lead of 100-115 and England have a day and a half in which to amass a large total they could be in a position to exert considerable pressure in the fourth innings.

Dubai, first Test, day one

I had waited five months for today. There were times at which that wait was agonising. It wasn’t too bad at first, in September when I had the climax of the County Championship to watch, and it was mostly just irritating in October when there wasn’t any cricket to watch. But by the time we got to the end of November and it had been three months since I had seen England play, with nothing but two South Africa v Australia Tests for sustenance, the fact that today was still eight weeks away seemed borderline unbearable. So to say that today was disappointing is an understatement. I have not seen England play that poorly for quite some time; I think even the performance in Perth may have been better. To be bowled out for 192 on a placid pitch was an incredible feat of incompetence. It’s the sort of thing I expect to see from India, but we are supposed to be better than that.

The England batsmen were almost entirely culpable in their own demise. Only Bell, who got a gem first up, and Trott who was strangled down the leg side can have any excuse. The rest played uncharacteristically poor shots and did not seem to learn anything from the batsmen that were dismissed before them. Cook, Strauss, KP and Morgan all batted like they had never seen this kind of bowling before, but there was nothing that special about it. Even I, who play a handful of times a year with whomever I can convince to join me, have seen a ball that’s supposed to turn and doesn’t. (Quite a few of them, actually.) Last winter that was Xavier Doherty’s stock ball and KP smashed him out of the park. The difference here seemed to be purely psychological. They played the reputation of the pitch and of the bowler instead of the actual delivery and once the collapse started they seemed to be overwhelmed by a collective suicide instinct. It was pathetic, especially on the first day of a series, but it does happen occasionally. It took Prior and Swann to show just how benign the pitch was, as they added fifty for the eighth wicket before Swann finally was bowled by an unplayable delivery. Before that, however, Swann made 34 by hitting with a mostly straight bat back down the ground. With the ball not turning appreciably it was a very low risk strategy and it should not have taken until the number nine batsman to work it out. The batsman who will hold his head highest will be Matt Prior. Whilst everyone fell around him he stayed calm, accumulated for a while, and then got a bit more expansive with the tail to score an unbeaten seventy. If the rest of the batsmen had played even close to as well England would be looking at 500.

For Eoin Morgan the day must be doubly disappointing. Before the match I and several others had suggested that he be dropped for a bowler. He is one of the best players of spin in the side, though, and he had a golden opportunity to play a big innings and cement his place at number six, both against a fifth bowler and against a younger batsman like James Taylor. He batted well with Prior to put on about forty and then played an insane sweep that if he’d been watching the other dismissals he ought to have known wouldn’t work. He was lbw for 24 and with the way Swann and even Jimmy Anderson batted there will certainly be more questions about whether he is worth keeping at number six.

The bright side for England is that because the collapse was so self-inflicted there’s a good chance that it won’t happen again. England under Strauss and Flower have had the occasional dramatic first innings collapse that has cost us a Test match, but have come back well every time. Flower is not the sort of coach to let the basic errors that were on display happen without making an adjustment. It’s not clear if it will happen by the second innings of this match, but the fact that England collapsed today does not mean very much for the rest of the series. It’s worth mentioning too that the last time England collapsed was not in Perth or Jo’burg, but at Trent Bridge. We got about thirty more then, but put up 500 in the second innings to win. A repeat performance isn’t likely, but we do know the batsmen are capable. The problem, however, is that when the previous collapses have turned to defeats they have all brought the series level at 1-1. If England lose here, however, they will be 0-1 down with only two matches to play and on surfaces on which Pakistan can shut up shop. It may be very difficult to even force a draw in the series if England lose here.

It is far from given that England will lose, however, though it certainly looks grim. England have only bowled a handful of overs against the Pakistan openers, but Jimmy already got the ball to swing and beat the bat. The seamers usually get the most out of the pitch in the morning, when there is a bit of moisture still about, and with the ball still quite new England could yet do a bit of damage. The goal right now must be to keep Pakistan under 300. It is possible, though it will be difficult and some luck will be required. England are masters at plugging away relentlessly until the batsmen make an error though and that skill will be invaluable tomorrow. Even a deficit of 150 might be surmountable if the batsmen play better in the second innings. Given that Pakistan tend to bat slowly, even a huge first innings deficit will not leave England a lot of time to bat out. I’m looking forward to seeing how we fare tomorrow.

An idea for Test cricket

I read an interesting piece today suggesting that Test cricket move to a multi-division format. I think this is a good idea, right now there is no rational basis to the current granting of Test status. I would suggest having a nine team top flight, who would play four or five match series home and away against each other over the span of five years. This would allow teams to play two series home and away most years whilst allowing time for the World Cup and World T20 competitions, both of which would then be played once every five years. This would allow a simple league table to replace the current incomprehensible ICC table and a clear champion to be crowned every five years without the need for a Test Championship, though one could still be held. If the bottom two teams were relegated it would ensure that there were very few meaningless series. Even New Zealand v the West Indies would be a relegation ‘six-pointer’. It would also give the Associates the chance they deserve to play in the top flight. A look at the County Championship over the last couple of years shows how well such a system could work.