Xtra Time Web Desk: Newly elected ICC chairman Greg Barclay has questioned the current Test championship model. The administrator from New Zealand wants to keep the games primary format intact but is not too convinced with the WTC model. As it appears the Test league table, an innovation which only officially began with the 2019 Ashes and is due to culminate in a Lord’s final between the top two nations next summer, is at risk.
“Covid has probably highlighted some of the shortcomings we have got with the World Test Championship,” Barclay said.
“From an idealistic point of view it probably had a lot of merit but I do just query in a practical sense whether it’s actually achieved what it was intended to do.
“Let’s get through the next little bit, do what we can taking into account Covid and the ability to reallocate points or whatever, but my personal view is once we’ve done that we’re probably back to the drawing board.
“I’m just not quite sure it’s entirely fit for purpose and perhaps has achieved what we might have hoped it would when it was first conceptualised four or five years ago.
“Like everything it’s kind of up for grabs and we’ll have a look at it.”
Barclay has no intention of compromising the primacy of the format but with fixture congestion a major issue along with the commercial viability of five-day cricket in several territories, he sees the need for pragmatism.
“We’ve got to look at it in the context of the calendar. Simply putting more cricket in there for the sake of putting more cricket on makes the situation worse,” he said.
Barclay was elected as the independent ICC Chairman last week.