How to fix the state of Cricket

[scoodledoodle]

But I really believe in what I am about to say, because we need to understand the key things missing in many cricket matches;

Cricket (mostly) needs to have Purpose, Meaning and as much simplicity as possible

So lets go through each format first;

Test Cricket
Simple - The Goal (For ICC) is; Every Test Match should, or rather Must have a Result. A Draw should be seen by ICC as generally a Bad Outcome.

Why? Because a 5 day test match without a result is meaningless to a lot of fans. The only types drawn matches that should be happening are the 2021 - 2022 Ashes 4th test match or the 2020 - 2021 India vs Australia 3rd (?) Test Match.

So how do we prevent frequent drawn matches? No Flat Pitches

World Test Championship
Although the World Test Championship has been introduced way too late, as I believe it should've been introduced at least 40 years ago (but moving on...), keeping a WTC is definitely the way to go, because it give meaning and purpose to Test Matches, simple as that.

The Format - I have a few big things to say here, First of all, everyone needs to be playing everyone. Except for Pakistan - India due to all the politics, but please, please, we are just going to have to ignore this. Yes I know this is unfair, but this really shouldn't prevent everyone playing everyone and make it real Championship.

Secondly, all teams need to play the same number of matches for each WTC Season/ Cycle. And the simple solution is; Have every Test Series to be only 3 matches, so every Test Series firstly cannot be bilateral, and can only be part of the WTC, and secondly can only be 3 test matches. So yes, no more 2 match test series, no more 4 match test series, and no more 5 match test series (forever).

Some people will say; But Ashes?? And India vs Australia, England vs India?? these are historic and great series, they need to be 4 - 5 matches.

Well, I don't want to argue much on this but basically we are in a critical time for cricket now, not everything can be the same.

So now, this means all 9 teams will play 24 matches for each WTC season, with a WTC finals series to be best of three. Yep, I said 9, so remove Test Status from Afghanistan, Ireland, Zimbabwe, its way too late for them to join the "party".

Simplicity - When a team wins a test match, they get 6 points. When a team loses a test match, they get 0 points. When a team draws/ no result a test match, they get 3 points. Its as simple as that, none of this percentage of the total points of the series stuff.

If two teams have the same points at the end of the season, the way to distinguish them is first comparing win percentage, then away win percentage, then home win percentage I guess.

ODI

Well I believe ODI is on its deathbed, a non-WC ODI match is a dead rubber match for many. Why? No purpose, no meaning in these matches.

Ive said it in the past, a format or sport like this that is boring and meaningless but has a world cup once every 4 years is not at all sustainable.

So what Now? My solution is so straightforward; Remove the ODI World Cup, and replace that with the World ODI Championship (its the ODI version of the WTC). Simple. This now means 99% of ODI matches is towards these leagues, and has purpose. ODI cricket just got meaning again.

And have a Division 1 which would be the World ODI Championship.
A Division 2 and a Division 3. In another post on this thread I will list the teams for each Division.

But basically, firstly everyone plays everyone, (expect unfortunately India and Pakistan, sorry but we just have to ignore it). And Division 1 will have 13 Teams, at the end of the two year season, the bottom 2 teams (13th and 12th placed teams) are automatically relegated to Division 2 and the 11th placed team will play a 3 match relegation play-off vs the 3rd placed team of division 2. As for the top of table, the top 4 teams will qualify for the World ODI Championship Finals.

And again, from now on, firstly every ODI match can only be apart of this WC ODI Championship, and secondly every ODI series can only be 3 matches, so (again) no more 4+ match ODI Series. This now means, in division 1, every team is scheduled to play 36 ODI matches for each ODI championship season.

Simplicity - When a Team wins an ODI match, they get 3 points. When a Team loses an ODI match, they get 0 points. When a team draws/ no result a test match, they get 1 point.

Again, the second factor along points would be win percentage, not NRR.

And how about lets not make ODI matches flat pitches to avoid scores of 350, 400??

Additional Note - Test Championship & ODI Championship
So now we have two championships, the way they should be fixture is every team (in that league/ division) plays the same format at the same time, meaning everyone plays a ODI championship series at the same time as each other, so for example you cant have Pakistan and South Africa playing a T20 match, while India and Australia are playing a Test series, and England and Bangladesh are playing an ODI series. Have all ties, and teams playing in the same format as much as possible, this creates a great linkup and increases interest in the game, however this would be hard to do all the time, so again do it as much as possible.

And so the fixtures for both the Test and ODI Championship should be organised in a "match-week" style, (and not random or organised by individual boards), so similar to how the premier league, la liga, UEFA Champions League matches are organised in matchdays or match-weeks.

So the idea and aim is to have the WTC and ODI Championship played with each other in a span of two years, and after these two year cycles, have a one-month and half period for nothing expect the WTC finals and ODI Championship finals.

And the Host Country for the ODI and Test Championship Finals should obviously be the same country and not just England.

Champions Trophy
Initially, I didn't really like the Champions Trophy, but I then realised it pairs well with my proposed ODI Championship. So basically, The Top 8 Teams for the WODI Championship Season qualify for the champions Trophy which will be played Around 10 months - 1 year after that ODI Championship season ends.

I think the Champions Trophy would suit the ODI championship, because lets say Ireland (or any of the "smaller" teams) has a great season in the ODI Championship and they finish 7th, basically the champions trophy sort of recognises the great run they had by giving them an opportunity for silverware.

T20

So now that I removed the ODI World Cup, this now means that the only World Cup that cricket will be having is the T20 World Cup, that imo should be played every 4 years. Why did I chose T20 WC? firstly, I mentioned the first point above and so continuing with the "purpose" aspect;

- T20 is by far the most valuable format of cricket at the moment, and so bilateral t20 matches are not a huge problem because a lot of people find them interesting. And in T20 there are more of the "smaller" teams that perform well, where you have this much needed shock result matches.

But I believe most of the T20 cricket needs to be Franchise Based, and so there shouldn't be anymore T20 bilateral series, but still there can be T20 one-off friendly matches only.

Have the T20 WC every 4 years, and so in 2027, 2031, 2035, so that it is in a seperate year to the FIFA World Cup, and The Euros.

For now, T20 World Cup, after being renamed to the "Cricket World Cup" Should be 16 teams, and a different format that I wont explain for now.

T20 Franchise Leagues
I read a headline the other day about how Wasim Khan said that International cricket and T20 Leagues need to coexist. But this is not really the best solutions, because they really shouldn't be coexisting.

So what should we do? This is a tricky situation and the solution I have is unrealistic, but I hope I make sense.

The idea is these T20 leagues are not actual leagues, they are tournaments, and this crucial because (for some reason) Leagues and their longeitvty is what people like to watch (I believe) and enjoy following more. So now, the aim is to make these T20 leagues into actual leagues.

What is a possible way to do this?

Make the fixtures for these leagues similar to the fixture schedule of the UEFA Champions League, Europa League, where two or three weeks in a month are dedicated only to these T20 Leagues to be played, and those months (for the T20 leagues would be August, September, ~October, ~March, April, and ~May. Other months and time periods are for international cricket (and some Division 2 T20 Leagues only, I will shortly get into what a Division 2 T20 League is).

So now we need to realise, that due to weather issues, only very few leagues can do this. And so, as harsh as this is, the new solution is to divide all the franchise leagues into a ranking hierarchy, where division 1 leagues are the franchise leagues which can work with the above mentioned (approximate) fixture plan. It seems to me that those leagues would and should be;

- Indian Premier League
- Pakistan Super League
- Caribbean Premier League
- We need a fourth league to this list, not sure who it would be, South Africa?

I need to mention that my ranking of Divisions isn't based only on meeting the schedule plan, but also based on the profit it generates, the interest, viewership it generates, overall popularity and growth potential.

So now all the other T20 Franchise Leagues and Tournaments are ranked as a Division 2 T20 League, This Would Include;

- Big Bash
- T20 Blast
- Super Smash (New Zealand)
- Lankan Premier League

And any other T20 Franchise Tournament you can think of

Division 2 T20 Tournaments can only be a maximum duration of 1 month and half long. Simple.

So now the other big ruling;

- A player can only play for one team from the Division 1 Franchise Tournaments, and also can only play for one team from the Division 2 Franchise Tournaments.

- In case there happens to be a clash between an International match and Franchise match from a Division 1 League, then the player is allowed to play the T20 franchise match (instead of the international cricket match) if he wants to

- However, in case there happens to be a clash between an International match and Franchise match from a Division 2 League, a player is not allowed to chose to play the Franchise match and must make himself available for the International Match. But if the player doesn't get called up for the international match, then they are allowed to play the Franchise match/ tournament.

Division 1 and Division 2 leagues ideally shouldn't clash, but this is near impossible to avoid, and if there are any clashes, then a player can't play for these leagues of the different divisions that clash fixtures.


Other Formats
T10, Hundred, 6Sixty, Something else, And another format, and an additional format. For all these new formats, I have one thing to say;

Get Rid of them immediately!

Why?

Imagine; So, you are new to the sport of cricket and you want to know this sport more, so you have a look at the formats. You see there is Test Cricket, ODI Cricket and The popular T20 Cricket. You are quite confused honestly, but you try to understand the differences between them. Its going alright so far

Bt wait. You find out that there is this other tournament called the Hundreed where they have 100 balls for each innings. So how many balls does have T20 have, and why did they need to make another game with 100 balls.

Then there is something called T10. is T10 part of T20?? or the other way around??

3IC, is this a cricket thing or some Program??

Nintey-Nintey? They already have a game with 120 balls in an innings, they then have a game with 100 balls, why 90 balls now??

6Sixty?? What is going on?

And then you, as the person who was wanting to know about cricket is quite confused at this complete, rubbish mess.

I really hope you get the point; There can only be three formats; Test Cricket, ODI Cricket and T20 Cricket. Simplicity


People say, but look at how much interest there is/was in the Hundred. Let me tell you, people are interested in this stuff because its something new. Again, its interesting because its just something new. Anything that is new will automatically have some initial interest. But year after year of this Hundred tournaments, I believe it will (just like a lot of cricket today) lose interest.

And then what???? Have 'The Fifty', T30, Fifteen ball matches, a super over match, and then at that point what else would be new???

Its a cricketing crime that boards and people are allowed to just make a new format, where is the control??

Division 1 - World ODI Championship - 13 Teams
Looking at the super league standings:

1. New Zealand
2. England
3. Bangladesh
4. India
5. Pakistan
6. Australia
7. Afghanistan
8. South Africa
9. West Indies
10. Sri Lanka
------------------------
11. Ireland
------------------------
12. Zimbabwe
13. Netherlands

Zimbabwe and Netherlands are Automatically Relegated to Division 2. Ireland will face a relegation play-off series vs Nepal. Scotland and Oman are Promoted to the next seasons ODI Championship Season. And have the same relegation and promotion system for Division 2 and 3.

Top 8 Teams for ODI Championship qualify for Champions Trophy which will be played around 10 months - 1 year after the ODI Championship season and finals concludes.

Division 2 - 9 Teams
1. Scotland
2. Oman
3. Nepal
4. Namibia
5. United States
6. United Arab Emirates
7. Papua New Guinea
8. Canada
9. Jersey

Division 3 - 10 Teams
- Denmark
- Uganda
- Qatar
- Singapore
- Hong Kong
- Vanuatu
- Malaysia
- Kenya
- Italy
- Bermuda

Creating Purpose for odi's

So if cricket was to continue having three formats, these leagues will have to remain as one-month and two-month tournaments.

- After making my schedule, The whole of April, the whole of May is free and a few weeks of March is free. This 2 month and 2 week period ~ is for Division 1 T20 Leagues only, so the IPL, PSL, CPL/ Major League Cricket or SAT20 or Dubai or Saudi League (Whatever it is) can allowed be played in this timeframe.


Other Additional Points

- Get Rid of Test Rankings and ODI rankings for simplicity and obvious reasons beign that there is now a Test
Championship and ODI championship!

 

[Bevab]

You lost me when you said draws are bad for tests. (assuming this is your own content and not copied from elsewhere).

 

[Till Valhalla]

Just give all the trophies to India and ban Pakistan.

 

[wasteyouryouth]

You lost me when you said draws are bad for tests. (assuming this is your own content and not copied from elsewhere).

Lost me when he said flat pitches don't get results.

 

[scoodledoodle]

Just give all the trophies to India and ban Pakistan.

india can have all the plastic toy trophies to play with

 

[Master Khan]

You lost me when you said draws are bad for tests. (assuming this is your own content and not copied from elsewhere).

We can have a super over in test match if it ends in a draw lol.

 

[Bevab]

We can have a super over in test match if it ends in a draw lol.

Super over, but it’s supposed to be bowled by your keeper and your numbers nine to eleven are the only ones allowed to bat.

 

[Master Khan]

Super over, but it’s supposed to be bowled by your keeper and your numbers nine to eleven are the only ones allowed to bat.

That should be the rule in T20 lol, that will be fun to watch.

 

[pillowprocter]

Super over, but it’s supposed to be bowled by your keeper and your numbers nine to eleven are the only ones allowed to bat.

India drawing matches and playing Thakur at 9

Post automatically merged: Oct 9, 2023

Super over, but it’s supposed to be bowled by your keeper and your numbers nine to eleven are the only ones allowed to bat.

India drawing matches and playing Thakur at 9

 

[icyman]

Too long an opening post.

But, my analysis is that Test cricket is on its deathbed, as it cannot ,all by itself pull in crowds, money, etc. Apart from India, England, Australia, no other country seems to be investing money into the longest format.

ODI &T20 will still draw in crowds and can be interesting to watch. Test cricket- the introduction of the WTC has actually meant nothing. Ideally, this should have happened in the early 2000s with team divided into groups of 2 + relegation and promotion. It was the likes of BCB ,CWI which prevented this from happening back then, as they knew their teams couldn't cope up with the pressure.

Removal of the ODI World Cup is simply not possible. It is still the pinnacle format that the ICC and many pride itself upon. I see a situation with the ODI being reduced to 40 overs in the near future. The question then comes onto T20- essentially it would be the exact 50% of an ODI in that case. The leagues and ICC would probably adopt the T10, as the games tend to end quicker and can spread the game throughout the many nations they are planning to. Also, T10, with 8 players as opposed to 11 will be ground breaking. Have a championship, get the game into the Olympics as well.

Summarization:
1. Scrap Tests, except for the marquee ones
2. Change ODI to 40 overs, more tri-series+quadrangulars. Get back the ICC KO. The World Cup format should also be like 2011
3. Change T20 to T10, expand the number of competing nations to 24. 8 Groups of 3, follow the FIFA structure.

 

[Master Khan]

Too long an opening post.

But, my analysis is that Test cricket is on its deathbed, as it cannot ,all by itself pull in crowds, money, etc. Apart from India, England, Australia, no other country seems to be investing money into the longest format.

ODI &T20 will still draw in crowds and can be interesting to watch. Test cricket- the introduction of the WTC has actually meant nothing. Ideally, this should have happened in the early 2000s with team divided into groups of 2 + relegation and promotion. It was the likes of BCB ,CWI which prevented this from happening back then, as they knew their teams couldn't cope up with the pressure.

Removal of the ODI World Cup is simply not possible. It is still the pinnacle format that the ICC and many pride itself upon. I see a situation with the ODI being reduced to 40 overs in the near future. The question then comes onto T20- essentially it would be the exact 50% of an ODI in that case. The leagues and ICC would probably adopt the T10, as the games tend to end quicker and can spread the game throughout the many nations they are planning to. Also, T10, with 8 players as opposed to 11 will be ground breaking. Have a championship, get the game into the Olympics as well.

Summarization:
1. Scrap Tests, except for the marquee ones
2. Change ODI to 40 overs, more tri-series+quadrangulars. Get back the ICC KO. The World Cup format should also be like 2011
3. Change T20 to T10, expand the number of competing nations to 24. 8 Groups of 3, follow the FIFA structure.

To be honest I hate T10, It's just not cricket. I prefer T20 and just keep ODI at 50 overs.
You are right about test cricket, it is pretty much dead now.

 

[Till Valhalla]

Just give all the trophies to India and ban Pakistan.

While we are at it ban Bangladesh too.

 

[icyman]

While we are at it ban Bangladesh too.

Make me ICC Chairman- I did have a rather interesting thread over it, a few months ago!

 

[Till Valhalla]

While we are at it ban Bangladesh too.

To add not for the reason @icyman suggested.

 

[icyman]

I gave it some more thought and the more I think, the more convinced I am that the ground rules of the game will have to change. I have made some radical suggestions here; feel free to comment and add on.

SHORTEST FORMAT: T10
The T20 needs to make way for T10, with all leagues around the world embracing this philosophy. The reason for this- the game can move on quickly and now with its integration in Olympics, this format will call for a quick end to the games. Bilaterals among nations to be banned enitrely.

Rules for T10:

• 8 players take the field out of a playing 11. Allow any 8 to bat and any 8 to bowl. This will make the game more interesting and will call for a strategic angle to the game. Allow one bowler to have a max of 3 overs and let this one be allowed to bowl 2 consecutive overs(like in the 100)
• The straight V be designated as a 'Max Zone' (idea picked up from Martin Crowe's Cricket Max). Al runs in this zone be doubled.
• Scrap DRS limits and review each and every decision

Global Championship for T10:
Let this replace the T20 World Cup, but conduct it once every 4 years. Format for this can be like FIFA with 24 teams divided into Groups of 3 each. Let there be a Round of 16- Quarter-Semi-Final. 24 teams can be brought up easily- also disband the West Indies and let them play as individual islands- as this will also serve as a precursor to the Olympic qualification.

Host Selection: Prefer to have Associate Members host this

FLAGSHIP FORMAT: 40 OVER ODI
This has to come down to 40 overs. People in the near future wont have the appetite to digest 100 overs in a day, where the middle overs are getting increasingly boring. Bilaterals among nations need to be capped at a max of 3. Nations be asked to look at organizing tri-nation and quadranulars in lieu of it.

Rules for ODI:

• Like with the above mentioned T10, let all 15 squad members be considered to bat and bowl.
• PowerPlay 1: First 10 overs with 2 fielders outside the circle
• PowerPlay 2: Divide into 2 zones of 5 overs each, to be chosen by the fielding captain
• Fielding captain should also given the choice to use the Pink ball during a 10 over block.
• Scrap DRS limits and review each and every decision
• 2 new balls from each end- one being a Kookaburra, the other being an SG

Global Championship for ODI:
Just like the current one- have an ODI World Cup every 4 years. Format could be on lines of the previous ones used for U-19 OR the 2011/2015 ones. The reason I say so, World Cups can get boring with way too many matches and unnecessary gimmicks like Super 6s and Super 8s.

Host Selection: Prefer to have Full Members host this

TEST MATCHES:
Few nations will continue to dominate. However, if the above T10 and ODI40 are embraced with bilaterals being limited, member boards will want to still play Test cricket. However, for Test matches to be fully be efficient, one needs to have a 2-tier structure with 7 teams in each +the possibility of promotion & relegation.

Altering the Test Fabric:
Option A: Allow Test matches to run as is i.e. 5 days boring games, 90 overs each
Option B: 4 day Test matches with 120 overs, with the game going beyond 6pm
Option C: 3 day Test matches with 120 overs+ rotating players. Like with my above suggestions- have 15 members rotate in and out, depending upon the health of the player concerned. Let the game start at 9am and continue until 9pm- kind of an endless test

Global Championship for Tests:
With a 2-tier structure, the league toppers of the Premier league get to play the Final Test or simply hand over the trophy to the topper.