LONDON: As England and India get ready to contest what will be the 2,000th Test match ever played, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has promised to protect the “pinnacle form of the game”.
Next week’s first of a four-match series at Lord’s, the ‘home of cricket’, will also be the 100th Test between England and India and is set to provide India star Sachin Tendulkar with his latest opportunity to become the first batsman to score a hundred international hundreds.
The series also gives England, currently third behind India and South Africa, the chance to leapfrog MS Dhoni’s tourists at the top of the ICC’s world Test rankings should they take the series by a margin of 2-0, 3-1 or better.
However, a 1-0 or 2-1 success for Andrew Strauss’s side would leave India fractionally in front in the rankings.
There have long been fears for the future of Tests, which date back to when Australia played England at Melbourne in 1877, with current concerns based on the rise of Twenty20 — the youngest of cricket’s three international formats.
And while next week’s match at Lord’s is set to be a sell-out, crowds for Test matches elsewhere in the world have often proved patchy compared to those for 50 overs per side One-day Internationals (ODIs) and the even briefer Twenty20.
However, ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat said the advent of a World Test Championship, scheduled to culminate in an inaugural tournament between the leading nations in England in 2013, would help revive the five-day game.
“As we all prepare to celebrate the staging of the 2,000th Test match, one cannot imagine it to be any better than between two of the top teams in a series that carries with it the battle for top spot in the rankings,” Lorgat said in an ICC statement issued on Thursday.
“That is great context, and we will enhance that with the ICC World Test Championship in future.”
And the South African administrator insisted: “Test cricket is the pinnacle form of the game, and we will continue to protect and promote it above all.
“It is our link to the game’s origins; it is what defines greatness and it is recognised by the players as being the benchmark by which they wish to be graded and remembered.
“History has proven that no other form of the game can create memorable and meaningful moments like Test cricket can.”
KARACHI: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is keeping its option open of legally challenging the International Cricket Council (ICC) on the decision to have its members make constitutional amendments to ensure there is no government or political interference in the cricketing matters.
Well-placed sources in the board disclosed that the option of legally challenging the ICC move had not been dispensed with.
“We have this option available to us. We are studying the constitutional amendments made and suggested by the ICC,” one source said. He confirmed that the PCB had not objected to the constitutional amendment when it was passed at the ICC executive council meeting in Hong Kong last month for a specific reason.
“It would have served no purpose to object to it as all other members would have approved of the constitutional amendment and we would have been left nowhere. But what we succeeded in doing was to get the ICC to give a two-year period for the implementation of the amendment by all member boards. We are now studying all the pros and cons of this amendment keeping in mind our particular environment where government support is necessary for the sport in Pakistan.”
LONDON: England batsman Jonathan Trott, currently fourth in the world Test rankings, has said a drink problem once threatened his career.
“I used to go nuts and it affected the image people had of me. It used to cloud my judgment, not just that night, but for days afterwards,” Trott said.
“I still have the occasional beer or glass of wine but, when it comes to nights out, you probably won’t find me around them.
“It can be quite tough but the guys in the team understand. In the past I’d have been at the front of the queue {for a drink}. But I honestly don’t think I’d be sitting here today if I did still drink.”
Trott, 30, who was born in South Africa, said he had always wanted to play test cricket.
“My ambition was always to play international cricket, to test myself against the best,” he said.
“I want to be the best I can be, to constantly improve. If I still flew economy, had to carry my bags and didn’t get paid as much, I’d still want to do it.”
Trott will be a key member of the England team who meet India in a four-Test series starting at Lord’s next Thursday. England will take over from India as the world’s number one side if they beat the tourists by at least a two-Test margin.
