ICC Intercontinental Cup ( four dayers) should be replaced by Tier 2 ICC World Test Championship

I’m not sure I agree with that. The longer the format the more you get found out if there’s a chink in the armour.

Not many of our batters even own a suit of armour.

They could buy the new plastic armour the riot police have been issued with to attack the elderly and break women’s legs though. We have hundreds of thousands of chinks, and some plastic armour. 😂

I dunno if you guys have been watching this NZ Test?

You know your system is healthy when you can produce a 28 year old Darrel Mitchell who just looks the business.

TapsC wrote: ↑Fri Nov 29, 2019 8:04 am

I agree with this. I dont know if we are a better team but I would say its fairly even there. Add Sri Lanka and the West Indies to that list too and you get a group of teams who can beat each other in home conditions.The team that comes 9th should face some kind of relegation challenge.

I disagree and I will lay out a few reasons for my hypothesis. I use the word hypothesis, because I don't want to claim that a given side is absolutely stronger than another, but rather that one team is "most likely" or "reasonably understood" to be stronger than another.

On the one hand, its straight-forward to say abc teams are "fairly even" with xyz teams as just a stand alone statement. However, giving a few detailed points can strengthen any particular point of view. So I will argue that the gap between the top 9 Test teams and the next group is still substantially large, generally speaking. A year ago, I would not have added the "generally speaking" caveat, but in the past 12 months Bangladesh has lost home Tests to both Zimbabwe and Afghanistan.

Bangladesh

I'll start with my team first. Bangladesh, even at full strength is MILES behind teams like India, England, Australia, and New Zealand. However, Bangladesh are "most likely" a notch or two above Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, and Ireland. The reason I say this is because Bangladesh, for better or worse, rely on 4-5 players (Shakib, Mushfiq, Tamim, Miraz, Mustafiz) with the remaining players contributing little to nothing. On the face of it, when 2 players are missing from a series, its "only a couple of players" yes. But for an imbalanced side such as Bangladesh, its half of their performing players. Shakib actually counts as 2 players in one. So for example, against Afghanistan, Tamim and Mustafiz were missing and that is 30-40% of the contributing players (2 players out of 5 = 40%). There presence of one key player can have a synergistic, sum-is-greater-than-the-parts effect. Tamim's presence stabilizes the opener at the other end, which in turn prevents the top order from walking into the crease earlier than desired. In the Zimbabwe loss, 3 performers were out with Tamim and Shakib's absence. Again thats 50-60% of the contributing 4-5 players. The final margin was 150 runs, and its theoretically possible for Tamim and Shakib to have added 75 runs across 4 batting innings, and saved another 75 across 2 bowling innings. Shakib, Tamim, and Mushfiq are particularly essential players, given that they have contributed against almost every team, in almost every condition. Although the statistics don't seem to support this claim, I think almost everyone would agree with that point.

Ultimately, in the big picture analysis, Bangladesh are most likely significantly ahead of ZIM, AFG, and IRE.

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka are similar to Bangladesh in that when they are in form, they can be very good (2-0 win in South Africa), but when they aren't they can struggle to beat Zimbabwe without some help from the umpires. Of course, Sri Lanka are a notch or two better than Bangladesh.

Ultimately, in the big picture analysis, Sri Lanka are most likely significantly ahead of ZIM, AFG, and IRE.

West Indies

Like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the Windies could potentially lose a Test here or there to ZIM/IRE/AFG...in fact they failed to win their most recent one against Zimbabwe. But the Windies, at full strength can still be formidable, as the Afghan team just found out.

Ultimately, the West Indies are most likely significantly ahead of ZIM, AFG, and IRE.

Pakistan

I'm not sure why Pakistan gets a pass in this discussion. They are faring quite abysmally in Australia at the moment, and aren't significantly better results wise than Sri Lanka. South Africa might also be in the Pakistan club. Basically, there is no way they are in the same bracket as the top 4 of India, England, Australia, and New Zealand.

My bottom line is that while Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, and Ireland might win a Test or two against a Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, or West Indies...over a 3-4 year period, spanning 20+ Tests, they will most likely be at least a notch below the latter sides.

Stoneman Returns wrote: ↑Sat Nov 30, 2019 12:00 pm

Windies had defeated England & Sri Lanka won their first test series in South Africa as the only asian team to achieve that success.

Sri Lanka was going through transistional phase & Windies were having problem with the board, both these teams now have come off from their problems and will again prove as competative unit which they already began with few massive wins.

Windies & Sri Lanka can't be compared with Bangladesh who are playing longest format for more then 20 years now and have been in same position even when they got new performing stars like Shakib, Tamim,Musfiq, Fizz etc. Bangladesh players body language doesnt looks great in white, seems they are least interested in test format.

Windies & Sri Lanka even can't be compared with Zimbabwe, Afghans or Ireland. Zimbabwe for last 3 years has been competative in test cricket. Afghans appeared to be fast learners of the game. Irish were competative against Pakistan & England but failed to capitalize their momentum in second innings of both the test matches.

Pakistan's test performances can be questionable in recent time but since they are regarded among the top lot it will be bit harsh to make them low at present.

9th spot in World Test Championship must be decided by competition among Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan & Ireland as performance of all these teams among themselves and against strong teams as been one sided affairs. Bangladesh gaining uperhand and became part of the Test Championship, just because of being a good administration and sound cricket culture, otherwise there is nothing much differance between them and other lower ranked side as per performance in test cricket is concerned.

In an individual matchup, one team can compete or even win a Test. For example, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe both beat Bangladesh in Bangladesh at that. Sri Lanka whitewashed South Africa in SA, but got thrashed in Australia, NZ, England. However, both ZIM and AFG teams are at least one level below Bangladesh. My reason is you have to look at strength vs multiple sides in a multitude of conditions.

If you take West Indies and Sri Lanka's performances vs Australia/India/England/NZ/SA and then compare with Bangladesh's you are likely to find small differences only.

But if you were to compare BD, ZIM, AFG vs the other top 8 sides, my guess is the differences would be considerably larger. That is to say, the gap between Bangladesh and ZIM/AFG/IRE is bigger than the gap between Bangladesh and Windies/Lanka/Pakistan.

Stoneman, we'll just have to see how the WTC ends up by 2021.

Robot and Mamba backing each other up again. What a surprise.

I disagree though, that will officially relegate Zimbabwe to a tier two nation.

I still hold on to that delusional dream Zimbabwe will one day compete and play against the big boys once again.

We still produce the players somehow. They just play for England. Just need good admin and player retention.

No no no

You’re pretty much taking Tests status away

More matches against the big sides is what’s needed

Our days at the big table are over I think. Is there really any way back. Even without Zimbabwe and ZC becoming a basketcase we were going to struggle to stay relevant the way international cricket is going.

Sadly I agree, our days at the main table are done. The real challenge is staying competitive against the Netherlands, Ireland, Scotland, Namibia, PNG etc.

There’s absolutely no evidence that the inexorable slide backwards is going to be halted. The ZC faithful will say we’ll always be better than those teams but that’s not the case. They’re progressing fast and we’re going backwards slowly, it’s inevitable that they’re going to overtake us.

We need to check the slide before we can go forward and there’s absolutely no evidence of that. None!! We’ve got the same old 4/5 decent players and we’re awash with club cricketers below them. Nothing has changed. Nothing will change.

We’re going to struggle against Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh going forward and as for England, India, NZ, Australia, West Indies and SA...well we play Australia and India next year, that’s not something to look forward to.

Australia away is going to be a bloodbath.