In at the deep end

Fancy watching a slugfest between Mike Tyson and Laila Ali? Or a five-match series between Manchester United and Mohammedan Sporting? Or Venus Williams taking on Nirupama Vaidyanathan? Why, then, must cricket endure the embarrassment of Bangladesh's sorry plight at Test level?

There are compelling arguments as to why nations should be initiated into the international arena. Globalisation of the game is a noble aspiration: cricket must not remain the sole preserve of the privileged few; the game must not be allowed to be hijacked by a clutch of elitists who are loath to grant right of admission to new members whom they consider unworthy of sharing the same space. Cricket is dying in the West Indies, losing out to rugby in New Zealand and has been reduced to a pensioners' pastime in England: it needs new talent, fresh faces, more enthusiasm and virgin territories.

The sentiments behind granting Bangladesh Test status are right, the execution wrong. The club of Test-playing nations should not expand at the cost of Test cricket itself. Competition is the essence, the very soul, of any sporting encounter. Yes, allowances must be made for inequalities and we must be patient with fledgling teams. But a mockery of Test cricket does the game no favours. It isn't a shame for Bangladesh to have lost 10 of the 11 Tests they have played, but the manner of their annihilation raises some disturbing questions. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Test cricket has been devalued and Test wickets and Test runs have been considerably cheapened.

If the base is to broaden, more countries should first be made Test-ready. When Zimbabwe gained Test status - the last country before Bangladesh to do so - they had already played 10 years of one-day cricket. More crucially, they had in their ranks Test-ready players like Dave Houghton, Alistair Campbell and the Flower brothers, all of whom had been battle-hardened by their experience in South African domestic cricket. They nearly beat India in their first Test.

To make sure the Bangladesh experience is not repeated, the ICC must draw up a list of long-term objectives and a road map. A start could be made by creating a second tier at the international level, including A teams from the Test-playing nations. A five-year calendar featuring regular exchanges of tours and a couple of major tournaments must be drawn up. To make the competition more meaningful, there should be substantial cash rewards.

Countries which make the grade through this rigorous process should then be given probationary Test status and a decent run to prove their worth, failing which, they should face relegation. This probationary berth, starting at one, could be extended gradually to expand the base.

It will be a cumbersome process and will require new legislation. But it beats the farce that Test cricket has been reduced to.

But before the ICC plays the big visionary, it must learn to rise above petty arrogance. It is easy to blame Jagmohan Dalmiya for the current stand-off over the appointment of the sub-committee to review the Mike Denness affair and the role of the match-referee. As an aggrieved party and a full member of the ICC, the Indian cricket board was well within its rights to ask for a say in the constitution of the committee. The names proposed by Dalmiya included two of the most respected figures in world cricket and the ICC's excuse that Richie Benaud and Imran Khan were unavailable has been effectively nailed by Imran, who said that he was never approached. The ICC's inflexibility on the matter smacks of shocking high-handedness and malicious confrontationalism.