A simple idea for a World Test Championship

India’s highly competitive performances in their away series in Australia, together with a hugely improved Black Caps outfit and some great recent efforts by Pakistan, gives me hope that there is still some life in the grand old lady that is Test cricket.

But how to cash in? A World Test Championship has been mooted many times in the past but I always feel the ideas become a bit clumsy when spelled out.

A tournament held in one country similar to the World Cup? Do you divide the teams into groups and play a couple of Tests in your group with the winner proceeding to a knockout stage?

How would a one-off knockout Test match work if it was drawn? And how long would this tournament take? Who would watch a Test between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in Perth?

Another version being touted is a knockout played over a long time, where the winner of a series between countries advance to the next round. Eventually after a few years the top two teams would meet in a final series, but by the time the final comes around nobody would remember what they were playing for in the first place. And what do the knocked out countries do in the meantime?

The idea of having a gigantic home-and-away league has merit. This is very fair but boy would it be dull. This competition would take about 10 years, the same interval between runs of the Oberammergau Passion Play.

The current world Test rankings are based on

Article source: http://www.theroar.com.au/2015/01/01/simple-idea-world-test-championship/