Wisden calls World Test Championship a ‘shambles’ and makes case for reform

Wisden hits the shelves this week and, as well as unveiling its latest batch of award winners, it has trained its sights on the International Cricket Council. The World Test Championship, the book argues, is a “shambles masquerading as a showpiece”.

The publication of the sport’s annual bible is timely, with the future of the WTC discussed recently at ICC meetings in ­Zimbabwe. In typically opaque fashion, the sport’s governing body is yet to announce the outcome of the debate.

Sources suggest the 2025-27 WTC is likely to remain the same, with nine teams and an asymmetrical two‑year fixture list producing two finalists. Writing in his notes the Wisden editor, Lawrence Booth, has made the case for a four-year all‑play‑all format, highlighting South Africa’s spot in the final at Lord’s this summer despite a paltry diet of two-match series and having faced neither ­England nor Australia en route.

“Among the first items in [the ICC chair Jay] Shah’s in-tray ought to be the World Test ­Championship, a shambles masquerading as a ­showpiece,” Booth writes. “This is not South Africa’s fault. It may even be to their benefit, if the path from laughing stocks to Lord’s persuades their board that Test cricket is worth saving.

“The ICC cannot allow the championship to continue as if designed on the back of a fag packet. Double its length to four years, like football and rugby, and ensure the top nine in the rankings all play each other, home and away, over series of at least three Tests.”

The catch, as ever, is India’s ongoing refusal to play in Pakistan on geopolitical grounds – something that came to a head during the recent Champions ­Trophy when Rohit Sharma’s eventual winners were based in Dubai for the entire tourna­ment. This in turn highlighted India’s domi­nance at board level, with Shah having switched from secretary of the Board of ­Control for Cricket in India to ICC chair last December while the issue was being debated.

Booth writes: “The communal shrug [that met Shah’s appointment] confirmed a sorry truth: 2024 was the year cricket gave up any claim to being properly administered, with checks, balances, and governance for the many, not the few. India already had the monopoly: now they had hotels on Park Lane and Mayfair.”

Elsewhere Wisden features moving first-person tributes to Graham Thorpe by Alec Stewart and Thorpe’s wife, Amanda, with the latter keen to raise awareness and understanding of the depression and anxiety that led the former England batter to take his own life last August. “Some people say suicide is selfish,” Amanda Thorpe writes. “But I have so much compassion for what he went through. He didn’t deserve it. No one does.”

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This year’s five Wisden ­cricketers of the year – the award that can be won only once and recognises per­formances during the previous ­English summer – includes three Surrey ­players in Jamie Smith, Gus Atkinson and Dan Worrall, as well as Liam Dawson and Sophie Ecclestone. Jasprit Bumrah is the leading men’s cricketer in the world, with compatriot Smriti Mandhana claiming the equivalent women’s award.

In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is at 988. Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org

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