Michael Vaughan proposes the idea of promotion and relegation in test cricket
Apr 6, 2019 at 2:19 PM
Former England captain Michael Vaughan has proposed a new idea to make Test cricket more competitive after England thrashed an inexperienced Sri Lankan side inside three days to win the first Test at Headingley by an innings and 88 runs.
“In Test match cricket you have to get the better teams playing against each other more consistently. If you look at this series, England against Sri Lanka, it is like a Premier League football team playing against a Division One team over five weeks. It’s a mismatch,” Vaughan told BBC Radio on Thursday (May 26).
Vaughan said that introducing the policy of promoting and relegating teams, on the basis of their performance in home and away series would make Test cricket more interesting.
“I would have promotion and relegation. I would have three divisions of four teams. I would play each team home and away. Two Tests home and (two) away, so four Tests for each team, that would (make the total count) twelve.”
He also said that the test matches apart from the Ashes, should be given more importance.
“Test match cricket needs a meaning other than the Ashes. Apart from the Ashes, the India-Pakistan series which generally doesn’t take place these days, there is not a great deal of meaning to bilateral series.”
The newly added points system to Test cricket, however, doesn’t impress Vaughan, “We have the points system brought in by Andrew Strauss, four points for a win. I didn’t hear that at the end of the Test match, but England have gone four points ahead. That is going to take a little bit of getting used to. Until, they get promotion and relegation, you are going to have such (mismatched) series,” said the former captain.
He also took a dig at the recently concluded Australia-West Indies series, terming the series as “garbage”, he said that the series playing West Indies against Australia was a complete mismatch.
“Australia versus West Indies in the winter, don’t think anyone watched that. It was garbage. We knew exactly what the result is going to be. It was a complete mismatch.”
Vaughan said that while England are the favourites to win the test series, Sri Lanka might spring a few surprises in the ODI series, which will be played after the test series.
“In One-Day cricket, Sri Lanka can always surprise you. So that could even itself out. This Test series; it’s going to be England all the way.”