Championship contrivance has failed test before

But most importantly of all, it is unnecessary. Test cricket needs some TLC but that should come from the administrators around the world who devise the schedules and who pay lip-service to the "primacy of Test cricket". It needs what marketing people and TV executives call "appointment to view". The places where such a thing exists - Melbourne or Durban on Boxing Day, Lord's in mid-July, The Oval last Test of the summer - are where Test cricket continues to be nourished. I am sympathetic to the argument that the very existence of a World Test Championship will force governing bodies to re-engage with the five-day game because ultimately they will want their teams to be in the final four. But I'm just not convinced that will really happen.