He was critical of the WTC points criteria
The new World Test Championship (WTC) cycle for 2025-27 has kicked off and Test cricket has remained as enthralling and heart-breaking as it has been in the last few years.
Teams have been pushing for results with the top sides pulling all stops to win, either it be through fast-paced batting, risky bowling lines or through good old sledging. The recent third Test between India and England is a fine example, where batting was not easy for both sides who took every chance to rile each other up with verbal duels.
After three days of wild crests and troughs including long-stretches of mundanity, England managed to win the match by 22 runs thanks to the freak dismissal of last man Mohammed Siraj.
While that has been going on in the UK, Australia were dominating on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, thrashing a West Indies team in transition with their experienced pacers. Even though their batters struggled to make runs, Australia got a 3-0 whitewash of the series through their pace battery. In the third and final Test of the series in Kingston, Mitchell Starc got to the fastest five-wicket haul in Test history and then condemned the Windies to the lowest Test total in the last 70 years.
While the result-oriented approach has restored some of the lost faith in Test cricket, former England captain David Gower feels that all Test nations being able to host the longest format is the only way to save Test cricket.
He felt the lopsided broadcast revenue system as well as ticket sales in the stadium for Tests play a huge role.
“There are so many factors — money, resources, infrastructure. Lord’s is an exception: 28,000 people will turn up on a Monday for Day Five of a Test if the match is set up well. India still gets good crowds, though in a 100,000-seater, 30,000 can look sparse. Australia gets healthy numbers when we tour. But in the West Indies, the stands are nearly empty. Test matches there often lose money,” Gower said in an interview with Sportstar.
“So, unless the ICC can think of — I know it wouldn’t go down well in India — redistributing the funds that can help out the poorer nations, we will see Test cricket declining apart from the top three, four, five nations. (This can’t be) just an odd boost every other year or in three or four years, but year by year,” the Ashes-winning captain said.
Gower was also heavily critical of the WTC’s final qualification criteria where winning percentages and slow over-rate deductions play a huge role. Some reports suggested that the ICC is keen on sanctioning four-day Tests in order to encourage smaller Boards to fit in more Tests in their series. Even the two-tier system of WTC with promotions and relegations has also been called impractical.
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