Former England batter Mark Butcher has opined that the World Test Championship (WTC) Test cricket has made things worse for Test cricket, while it was intended to help make it more competitive.
The World Test Championship (WTC) is the premier tournament of Test cricket, which is played over a cycle of two years, concluding with the top two teams on the points table playing a final to crown the champions.
However, there have been concerns raised over the future of Test cricket recently after South Africa announced an inexperienced squad, featuring seven uncapped players for the two-match Test series against New Zealand, commencing from February 4, 2024.
South Africa named uncapped batter Neil Brand as the captain for the New Zealand tour which will be played at the same time as the SA20 league, featuring the frontline Proteas players.
The decision sparked the debate about the future of Test cricket, with former Australian captain Steve Waugh calling it a “defining moment in the death of Test cricket’ and blaming the International Cricket Council (ICC) for it.
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Meanwhile, Butcher expressed his opinion that ICC’s effort to make Test cricket competitive with the introduction of WTC has ‘made it worse.’
“One of the things that’s made this even more inevitable is something that they’ve done to try to salvage Test match cricket, which is the World Test Championship,” Butcher said on the Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast.
“The point is that your bilateral series have to capture the imagination of the fans and the players of the two countries that are playing in it, and then the wider cricket-watching public. And the only way they are that is if they are competitive. And that’s how it always was.
“The idea that you widen the whole thing out to sort of span three years and blah blah blah, some series are worth this, some series are worth that, some teams can’t be asked this week – it makes it even more nebulous. The only effort that’s been made to kind of try and keep it relevant, I think, has made it worse.”
Notably, defending champions Australia are currently leading the WTC table with 56.25 percentage points, followed by India, who are in the second spot with 54.16 percentage points.
Meanwhile, Pakistan slipped to sixth position with 36.66 points after a series whitewash against Australia recently.
READ: Pakistan squad partakes in training session ahead of first New Zealand T20I
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