ECB's balderdash proposal

The England Cricket Board has proposed a new points system to decide the ‘overall winner’ in the bilateral series’ against Pakistan and Sri Lanka this summer which has been debunked by several people, including former captain Michael Vaughan, who has called it “nonsense”.

Vaughan, never one to mince words, has perhaps been a trifle charitable to the ECB, at least in the nuance of his dismissiveness: in my opinion the proposal is balderdash.

The ECB’s intent is not misplaced, mind you. With multi-nation tournaments growing, as indeed T20 leagues, bilateral contests seem to be losing their old significance. There is need for some spit and polish, as it were, to get the sheen back.

But the ECB, I’m afraid, appears to have got the wrong end of the stick. “It’s an over-complication that is not needed,” Vaughan argued when speaking to the BBC. He’s not wrong, for the methodology mixes apples, oranges and bananas to come up with a perfect fruit.

Let’s see what the ECB proposes. Most bilateral contests – at least between major cricket playing nations — are played across all three formats, Tests, ODI and T20 — in a series. The English cricket authorities moot that matches in each of these formats should be assigned points that will determine the overall winner.
The weightage for each format will obviously differ. Test matches presumably will get the maximum value in terms of points, followed by ODIs and T20s though it is not clear whether this will indeed be the pecking order, or it will be revised considering the enormous popularity of the shortest format nowadays!

Assuming that Test wins are assigned 5 points, ODIs 3 and T20s 2, finding the overall winner in a multi-format series would be a roller-coaster ride. That may not be such a bad thing to inject excitement, but it could get terribly lop-sided depending on the number of matches played.

For instance, if a tour has 5 Tests, 5 ODIs and 3 T20s making up a total of 46 points (based on the assumption made earlier), the overall winner of the series could be decided in the Test series itself if a team wins all 5 and registers 25 points. Even if the other side wins all limited overs matches, it can score only 21 points.

Let’s examine another scenario, say when India toured Australia in December-January last and played 5 ODIs and 3 T20s. Australia won 4 ODIs, lost the fifth and all three T20s, but would emerge overall winners, despite being whitewashed in one series!

The proposed points system could throw up such ridiculous situations every now and then that could create undesirable rancour between cricket boards, players and fans; more often I would believe than the excitement it could add.

As cricket is played today, specialists are emerging for each format. There are only a handful like Virat Kohli, A b de Villiers, Steve Smith, Kane Williamson, Joe Root to name some, who are certain in all three formats. This trend will only harden in future.

What this means is that a set of players who may win say a Test series, may not necessarily become 'overall winners’, if other sets of players from their country are not good enough. That is not going to lead to a lot of happiness.

As mentioned earlier, the ECB’s intent is not bad. But the ‘overall winners’ concept needs to be thought through in depth and breadth to see if it adds any value to the sport or is just an pointless diversion.

I believe a World Test Championship – which the ICC had toyed with for some while — makes eminent sense instead. Considering there are World Cups in ODIs and T20, this would help define the best side and players for every format.
So how about the ECB train its attention on pushing for this reform rather than a merry-go-round leading nowhere?