It’s going to be a exciting run to the WTC final, but that shouldn’t obscure the deep disparities in the game
Andrew Fidel Fernando10-Nov-2024There is a southern summer of truly spectacular promise in the offing in men’s Test cricket. A five-match Border-Gavaskar series, a three-Test New Zealand vs England tilt, and a South Africa vs Sri Lanka series, played entirely at the coastal (read: turning) South African venues, are already tantalising prospects.But add to this the masala of two World Test Championship final spots being up for grabs and we’re getting into World-Cup-knockouts levels of fun here.If you’re a T20 fan raised on last-over finishes every other night, please don’t laugh. A several-month multi-series climax leading to a global trophy is about as great as Test fans have ever had it. For that, thanks are due to the World Test Championship. Whatever its flaws, in its third cycle at least, it has bloomed into a league in which no fewer than five teams are still in the hunt leading in to the final months.Related
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Australia and India are top of the table. But New Zealand, Sri Lanka and South Africa are in a meaningful tussle now, with all three having racked up vital wins in the last few months, and all three due to host home series that have the potential to vault them into the final.It would be easy, at this point, to conclude that Test cricket is actually in good health. Bangladesh recently whitewashed Pakistan. Pakistan have just beaten England at home. New Zealand have pulled off arguably their greatest Test cricket feat ever, whitewashing India in India. Earlier this year we even had West Indies beating Australia at the Gabba, which felt like a once-in-a-generation moment for West Indies cricket.But take a peek under the hood.Let’s take South Africa first, who only ten years ago were one of the great Test outfits. Just this year they sent a vastly depleted Test squad to New Zealand because those matches clashed with the SA20 tournament. They were duly smashed. That South Africa have a chance of making the WTC final despite this is an achievement on its own. But even if they do appear at Lord’s next June, they will have done so having not played a single three-Test series in this cycle.Sri Lanka, meanwhile, for all their board’s flaws, have always valued Test cricket. Their major problem is that their broadcasters tend to see Tests as such an inconvenience that home series are almost always two-Test affairs, and are increasingly played exclusively in Galle. It makes more financial sense for broadcasters to keep their rigging in place in one venue through a series, while it also makes cricketing sense for Sri Lanka Cricket to avoid giving matches to the P Saravanamuttu Oval, where the team has tended to lose in the past decade. Essentially you have a situation in which five of six home Tests in a WTC cycle will likely end up being played in Galle.New Zealand, meanwhile, have a unique disadvantage: the sun rises too early there. Where Tests played in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and South Africa may be consumed by the India market (it matters little what cricket is watched, it only matters how valuable the advertisements consumed are – this has long been the case), tests would have to go way past midnight in New Zealand to even break into Indian prime time. New Zealand, for now, are holding their own, playing as many as two three-Test series in this cycle. But in terms of Tests, their homecoming summer will feature only the three matches against England.Cricket West Indies, which has sustained a laudable Test programme (playing roughly eight Tests a year) over the last ten years, has almost certainly faced the greatest economic headwinds of all the WTC teams, stuck as they are in a time zone possibly even more inhospitable to South Asian audiences than New Zealand’s, plus a tiny home market of their own.Of the non-WTC nations, Zimbabwe play sporadically, Ireland barely get an invite, and Afghanistan have no serious home venue.