The ECB’s new system: pointless or making a point?

There are certain staples of an English cricketing summer: Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad showing off the finest array of swing bowling in the world, working out which members of our middle order aren’t useless (for the record, my money is on James Vince to do well but on Nick Compton to struggle), and of course, the weather to rear its often-ugly head time and time again. But this summer is noteworthy for a different reason. The English Cricket Board (ECB) are trialling a new points system designed to make international cricket more interesting, in response to the likes of the Indian Premier League, Big Bash, and T20 Blast.

The system works as follows: each test match is worth four points, with each limited overs game worth two points. This misleadingly suggests that test series are more important, but since England will be playing more limited overs than test match cricket against this summer’s tourists, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, the points work out pretty evenly distributed.

On the face of it, very little has actually changed – which highlights just how utterly pointless the whole thing is.

My initial reaction was shock, followed by confusion. How on earth would such a ‘Super Series’ possibly work? How could they give out one trophy when teams like England (the very country trialling this system) select very different teams for each format, even down to having different captains?

Then I realised that it isn’t going to work like that at all. Each format of the ‘Super Series’ would have its own trophy, its own ceremony, exactly as it currently does. The only difference is the £25,000 prize money given to the team that wins the Super Series overall. So, at least on the face of it, very little has actually changed – which highlights just how utterly pointless the whole thing is.

There is absolutely no need for it; it’s yet another attempt to revamp the international game and will simply not work. Test cricket gets smaller crowds than T20s because it’s easier to hop to your local ground after work on a Thursday than spending all day at a test match (and yes, because on the surface it’s less entertaining). This is another veiled attempt to revive the increasingly redundant 50-over format, while simultaneously trying to make test cricket ‘interesting’ by appealing to fans of the shorter formats: “watch test cricket: it has a bearing on the final result!”

Test cricket is the purest form of the game and fundamentally different from the shorter formats.

As a huge fan of test cricket (and to a lesser extent the other formats), this feels like a punch in the gut; an attack on something sacred. In my opinion, test cricket is the purest form of the game and fundamentally different from the shorter formats. Merging them all together so one relies on the other only diminishes the importance of test cricket, and the whole system ends up being nothing more than a crutch for the 50-over game.

Practically, this system is pointless. Symbolically? It’s a desecration of test cricket, and completely misses what’s wrong with the current system in the first place. The solution should be to hold fewer ODIs, not to increase their importance. Many of the current ideas aimed at boosting the international game, such as day/night tests, are modern and exciting. But this? This isn’t one of them.