Asian Test championship: More jugglery than competitive flair (8 March 1999)

8 March 1999

Asian Test championship: More jugglery than competitive flair

Qamar Ahmed

After twelve barren years of cricket at Test level between Pakistan and India, the most sensible and practical decision for the revival of the series should have been a rubber of three Tests followed by three one-day internationals. The excitement and the enthusiasm on either side of the border would have then reached a crescendo.

Pakistan's nerve-tickling victory in the first Test of the two match series at Chennai and the second Test at Feroze Shah Kotla in which India avenged the defeat with a historic bowling feat by leg-spinner Anil Kumble who picked up a haul of ten wickets in the second innings were the right kind of setting for a decisive third Test at the Eden Garden in Calcutta.

Unfortunately for all of us this was not to be so as the authorities controlling the game in Pakistan and India settled for a new kind of championship of Tests involving the third team, Sri Lanka. The Asian Test Championship was thus started as a precursor perhaps for the world Test championship, the idea of which was floated a few years ago and which is still to take off.

That will take a while when all the permutations and logistics of that idea is given a concrete shape by the ICC. The start of an Asian Test Championship however does not make much sense. On their performance at Test level, both at home and away, we all know who the best Asian team is and who the best players are in this sub-continent and who has a better success rate at the top level. Ask a layman and he would tell you that Pakistan, comparing India or Sri Lanka has a better record of winning Tests at home and also on foreign grounds.

With new rules and regulations dictating this Test championship and the point system governing the outcome of the matches, the whole thing has the one-day cricket base. Just imagine a Test being decided by the spin of the coin if all the permutations fail, according to the laws of this championship. I think is degrading Test cricket rather than making it popular. We have already witnessed and experienced the type of abuse with the bonus point system at both Colombo and at Lahore Tests.

The idea of a Test championship of the world has so far not taken off only because the ICC and its associates have not been able to find a proper way of organising it, logistic and regulationwise. There are many loopholes and the bonus points awarded is one of them. The teams can manipulate situations to choose their opposition. The Lahore Test against Sri Lanka is a clear example.

The reason why the World Test Championship has so far been kept in abeyance. A start however has been made in the sub-continent in that direction but we all know how shabbily tournaments like these are treated. How much interest this will generate and how successful this would be in the future remains to be seen. Disturbance in the first Test at Calcutta marred the game between India and Pakistan. At Colombo, the game was played in front of virtually empty stands.

We also know the fate of the Asia Cup. Out of seven championships so far, India had won on four occasions and Sri Lanka twice. In 1986 India did not care to participate, while Pakistan failed to come to India in 1991. The 1993 tournament scheduled to be played in Pakistan had to be called off. The Asia Cup which was supposed to attract a large billing is now a sort of a non-event. Are we not being shortchanged because of the whims of a few cricket board individuals who see nothing beyond the sound of the jingling dollar.

Source :: Dawn (https://dawn.com/)