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ICC confirms challenge matches will give associate members Test chance ICC confirms challenge matches will give associate members Test chance
(about 2 hours later)
An inaugural England-Ireland Test match at Lord's has become a foreseeable reality after the International Cricket Council specified its pathway to the top table for associate members. Ireland have welcomed confirmation that they will be able to play Test cricket for the first time in 2019 if they win the next Intercontinental Cup for associate nations. But they have also stressed the "anomalies", mostly financial, that remain as a result of the compromise that was necessary for the controversial reform of the International Cricket Council to be voted through.
The world governing body has announced a series of challenge matches is to take place, every four years from 2018, between the team at the bottom of the Test rankings and the winners of the Intercontinental Cup. When the idea of making Test cricket a meritocracy was originally trumpeted as part of those reforms, there was to be promotion and relegation between two tiers with eight teams in each.
The outcome of two five-day matches at home and away is expected to determine which team then becomes a Test-playing nation for the next four-year cycle, in accordance with a plan announced by the ICC two months ago at a meeting in Singapore as one of many major changes on and off the field. But now the threat of relegation has been removed in the details of the ICC Test Challenge that were announced after a board meeting in Dubai. That was crucial in helping to secure support for the proposals from strugglers such as Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, who will remain full members of the ICC and retain their places on the new Future Tours Programme even if they are 10th in the World Test Rankings in late 2017, then lose a four-Test play-off against the Intercontinental Cup winners the following year.
It is following the conclusion of this week's two-day board meeting in Dubai that more details have emerged. "The first thing to say is that we're pleased, and that's speaking on behalf of the Associates as a whole and Ireland in particular," said Warren Deutrom, the chief executive of Cricket Ireland.
The ICC's chief executive, David Richardson, said: "The ICC Test Challenge now opens the door for associate members to play Test cricket and in doing so gives even greater context to the ICC Intercontinental Cup, which will now be a pathway to Test cricket." "For us it was never so much about the threat of relegation, it was having that opportunity to be able to get up into Test cricket. Now we have that, and after winning four of the last five Intercontinental Cups, obviously our goal is now to do that again and get into the play-off."
Ireland have won four of the six Intercontinental Cups held to date, since 2004, and will be favourites to chalk up a sixth by 2017. However Deutrom added: "There is still a pretty significant anomaly in terms of funding and other issues. Were Ireland or another Associate to win the Test Challenge and secure Test status from 2019, we could end up playing a significant amount of Test cricket and still receive significantly less than the full member country we'd beaten.
The England & Wales Cricket Board chairman, Giles Clarke, who has increased power at ICC following the controversial constitutional amendments agreed in Singapore in February, has already made clear his intention to host a showpiece initial step on to the Test stage – at the home of cricket – should an associate member qualify at the first attempt. "There would also be an issue over fixtures, because the beaten country would retain the tours and series they had already arranged – and as I understand the proposals, would also join the next Intercontinental Cup from 2019, so that would mean playing more matches.
Writing in the 2014 Wisden, published on Wednesday, Clarke said: "The ECB have already reserved a date in the [future tours programme] cycle 2015-23 for a Lord's Test to the associate who win the Intercontinental Cup and go on to defeat the number 10 side in the Test rankings. A glittering prize!" "So there are still a few things to work through. I also think it is important that the mandatory release of players for international cricket that already applies to one-day tournaments is extended to cover the Intercontinental Cup.” That could have significant implications for English counties who employ Irish players from the summer of 2016 onwards.
Ireland have already beaten England once, on a memorable evening in Bangalore at the 2011 World Cup, and some of the players involved then may yet get another opportunity to follow up with a Test shock. However Deutrom welcomed the pledge by Giles Clarke, the chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, which is repeated in an article in the new Wisden defending the ICC reforms, that if Ireland win the Intercontinental Cup and then the Test challenge, they would be guaranteed an inaugural Test against England at Lord's in the Ashes summer of 2019.
To do so, however, they will first have to emerge again as the outstanding team in an increasingly competitive environment featuring major players such as Holland – who also recently shocked England in Bangladesh at the ICC World Twenty20 – the United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan. "That's a pretty big carrot for Irish cricketers to aspire to," Deutrom added.
The ICC meeting in Dubai, meanwhile, was notable for the attendance of the chairman-in-waiting, N Srinivasan, despite an Indian supreme court request that he temporarily cease such duties while investigations continue into alleged corruption at the Indian Premier League. In the shorter term, Ireland play two Twenty20 internationals in Dublin against Sri Lanka, the recently-crowned world champions, in early May, their first chance to bounce back from the disappointment of being denied a place in the tournament proper in Bangladesh after a dramatic defeat by Holland.
By announcing a "meritocratic pathway to Test cricket", however, the ICC ensured headlines would lie elsewhere. Meanwhile Kevin Pietersen has put on the record for the first time since he seemed to accept the termination of his England career in February that he has still not given up on an international recall.
A press release read: "The ICC board approved the introduction of an ICC Test Challenge which will take place every four years between the lowest-ranked Test team and the winner of the ICC Intercontinental Cup. When the ECB's managing director Paul Downton announced the decision to "look to the future" without Pietersen in early February, Pietersen was quoted in the official statement saying: "I will continue to play but deeply regret that it won't be for England."
"The proposal is that the 10th-ranked side on the ICC Test team rankings on 31 December 2017, or at the conclusion of any series in progress at that time, will play two five-day matches at home and two five-day matches away against the winner of the upcoming ICC Intercontinental Cup, with the inaugural Challenge scheduled to take place during 2018. However in the latest of a number of interviews in his new role as the captain of Delhi Daredevils in the forthcoming Indian Premier League competition, Pietersen told ESPN Cricinfo: "I'm still hopeful of playing cricket for England again one day"
"In the next eight years, two ICC Intercontinental Cup tournaments are planned, with the first to run from 2015 to 2017 and the second to be held between 2019 and 2021. The second ICC Test Challenge is scheduled for 2022." Delhi play their first game against Royal Challengers Bangalore in Sharjah next Thursday.
It was also resolved at the meeting to put the constitutional amendments agreed in Singapore before the annual conference in Melbourne in June, and to adopt a "long-term work plan" to aid the implementation of other changes involved.