A call for innovation
Simon Wilde proposes a new means of making Test cricket more competitive, calling for a world Test championship with knockout stages at the end of the tournament, and with each innings limited to 110 overs to eliminate the possibility of a draw and
Some games under this system might finish in what some would deem an unsatisfactory way but there are plenty of Test matches at present that are totally unsatisfactory - witness the recent Barbados Test in which bat dominated ball and a draw was clearly the only possible result from a very early stage. As a spectacle it was a travesty but under this plan batsmen-friendly pitches might still produce exciting games.
“What the commentators, cricketers I much admire, have been saying about swing is plain wrong,” he [Rabindra Mehta, a NASA scientist] told The Times yesterday. “They’ve been talking about the clouds, how the new ball won’t swing until the lacquer has come off, and it’s just rubbish.”
Siddhartha Talya is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo