Who are Zimbabwe's full member friends?

[eugene]

Tiers would only need to exist for tests. That being said, we virtually have tiers now anyway, Zimbabwe are only playing Bangladesh and NZ on any regular basis, while India, South Africa, England, India are playing regularly amongst themselves.

[JHunter]

Tiers would only need to exist for tests. That being said, we virtually have tiers now anyway, Zimbabwe are only playing Bangladesh and NZ on any regular basis, while India, South Africa, England, India are playing regularly amongst themselves.

Except tiers only for tests means you will still somehow have to plan to have a tiered test system and a non-tiered ODI and T20 system. Given that the FTP includes ODIs and T20Is then unless you tier them as well to go with the tests (which will make the ODI and T20 rankings meaningless) then you are simply not going to be able to schedule it in such a way that boards don't end up wasting enormous amounts of money. And no board is ever going to willingly limit itself in terms of ODIs and T20Is simply for the sake of having tiers in tests. ODIs and T20Is are the bread and butter of many boards. There is no way for instance that you can risk India in tier 2 and England and Australia in tier 1 of tests and then having to schedules ODIs according to the test tiers. And sending India to England only for ODIs most of the time is actually a colossal waste of time and money. The occasional ODI series, sure. But having mainly ODI series simply because India is in tier 2 and England is tier 1 in tests and therefore they shouldn't play tests as often? No way. That involves paying for plane fare, organizing matches, hotel accomodations, etc for India in England when India could simply play a few tests during the series instead of flying back another time to play tests due to the tier system.

We don't virtually have tiers now. Tiers would mean a formalized system wherein some teams never play each other (For instance how many teams in League One play the Premier League teams outside of cup competitions?). What occurs now is that every team is supposed to play every other team home and away (at least 2 matches) and then every team is free to organize extra matches according to their own preferences. Zimbabwe play Bangladesh and NZ with any regular basis now but the FTP itself lasts for 9 years (a time scale far too long for most people to keep in mind readily) so in time Zimbabwe will play more matches against the others. Australia will play England more than they play Zimbabwe by virtue of the fact that the FTP only requires a 2-test series between each team with each board free to organize extra matches. The Ashes have traditionally been 5 tests series. So Aus v Zimbabwe home and away would always result in at least 4 tests, maybe 5 or 6. But Aus v England home and away will almost always result in 10 tests. There is nothing formally preventing Australia and Zimbabwe from organizing a 5 test series and in time one may yet see that with Zimbabwe's return and with future progress. At the moment though organizers in Australia couldn't justify it because they will be unlikely to get the crowd support necessary to have 5 tests between Australia and Zimbabwe (whereas the Ashes can easily get the crowds needed). However if in say 2025, Zimbabwe gets much better but is ranked at say number 8 and Australia is ranked at say number 2, there is nothing stopping Australia and Zimbabwe from organizing a 5 test series if by that point all teams have become so good that the difference between the rankings is virtually meaningless (for instance perhaps the difference between the number 1 and number 10 team is only based on a few ratings points rather than 30+ ratings points). Under a tier system that will never be the case because one has formalized an artificial/arbitrary split of a mere 10 teams into 2 groups of 5.

EDIT: Additionally there is a reason why tiers have not been done in any international sport despite international sport existing for hundreds of years: sports administrators know that tiers are best used in a domestic system where one has freedom of movement between teams (and thus between tiers) and where the number of teams runs into the hundreds (usually well above 300). At most in international sport you will have about 200 teams and there will never be absolute freedom of movement for players between national sports teams.

[FlowerPower]

JHunter... Interesting points, but I feel you are being a little quick to dismiss the tier system...

1. I get your concerns about the tier system, but I have a different take. You seem to imply that one is stuck in a tier infinitely, which isn’t true. My suggestion is that the top team in each tier gets a shot at moving up a tier after each 3 year cycle, hence using your 20year cricketer’s life span, a brilliant 20 year old can move his team from tier 3, after a 3 year stay to tier 2, then to tier 1 after another 3, perhaps immediate move from 2 to 1 is a bit far fetched, but after 3 tries (ninth year) then the young fellow now a mature 32 years of age coulod well see his team in the top tier.

Just another note, seeing as you use football as an example, I always find that the fact that England is in a group of Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, San Marino, Ukraine (as an example) simply a futile exercise as one can predict who will move to the next round, before wasting everyone’s time and congesting fixtures ad nauseam (not to mention artificially boosting England’s status on Fifa rankings), why not have Moldova, San Marino Montenegro have a play off with a permutation of any of the other 3 (England, Ukraine and Poland) then have a smaller, competively meaningful group after the minnows are eliminated, or even better still have the 3 (Moldova, San Marino and Montenegro) in a competively meaningful prelim group, winner joining England, Ukraine and Poland for a group of four which will not congest the big boys' diaries. Not really sure who actually enjoys England vs Moldova or San Marino.

Besides isn’t this what we are already doing for the Cricket world cups? Not everyone is invited, there are playoffs for the minnows then there are preliminary rounds to eliminate the weaker teams (Bangladesh, Zim, Ireland and one of NZ or WI) then the proper competitions take place, and note as shown by WI in the last T20 Cup, even these “lesser” teams can rise to the top. So the system isn’t as exclusive as you seem to imply. The difference is that for test it would be over longer times and continuous. So I do believe that if Zim is organised and has the talent it can work its way up to the top.

2. Even if you lengthen the FTP to 14-15 years, you have not solved the problem that the tiers intend to solve, i.e. reluctance for the top teams to accommodate the minnows, and more importantly the farcical nature of the one sided contests that pertains. I don’t see any value in Zim playing Aus, SA, Eng, Ind in Tests to be honest, even if they were happy to accommodate us. However Ireland, Bangladesh, and to a lesser extent WI and NZ, with a 3 year review period (promotion/relegation play offs) makes perfect sense for me. As things are, Zim and Bangla wait for their once a year bilateral relations, which frankly never seem to grow past that. Surely if one of these guys were able to move a tier up, they’d get to play more high level cricket and more importantly would have earned the right to. Even if they are not promoted, they are guaranteed cricket around the year within whatever tier they are in, surely this is infinitely better than what pertains currently?

3. Granted, and I alluded to this as well, ODI and T20 would be an interesting challenge. I suggest that is left unaffected (un-Tiered), but grouped conveniently to allow mini Test seasons within each tier within each cricketing season, i.e. why not have blocks of Test months, and non-Test months. This is not that strange, e.g. currently Proteas and Aus are squaring off on an exclusively Test tour. Zim has done non-Test tours in the past exclusively with no hitch. The trick is to be able to block off certain time slots for Tests, and around these all can be ODI and T20 tours. Yes logistically this could be challenging, but nothing stops any teams arranging that walking off a mini Test they go into a non Test mini bilateral season. Dare I say like the franchise system works?

4. Agreed about the practise tours, but the tier would only allow this more, i.e. a tier of four would free up so much space, and I would go as far as saying A team tours playing once off matches with a lower tier team is mutually beneficial.


5. Not to sure about the interpolation idea in the FC systems, i.e. teams from different leagues facing off, but sounds good, but it would be complex to pull off, and inherently the imbalance in quality of FC systems would lead to the one sided matches, unless we are talking of Zim Select in the Sunflower SA competition, and Bangladeshi Select in the Indian FC “tour/exhibition tour”, and perhaps NZ select in the Aus FC again as a “tour/exhibition tour”. Or are you alluding to a CL style FC?

In summary I get most of your arguments, but find that if anything the Tier system would aid and not hinder most of what you propose.

[JHunter]

JHunter... Interesting points, but I feel you are being a little quick to dismiss the tier system...

Thank you but it only seems quick because I had a ready made answer, but believe me I am not quick to dismiss it. I'm basing this off years of looking into how a tier system would work and the drawbacks and advantages (which are actually only superficial and few)

1. I get your concerns about the tier system, but I have a different take. You seem to imply that one is stuck in a tier infinitely, which isn’t true.

Actually this is true. We can look at many tiered domestic systems around the world and one often sees that many clubs remain in the same league year after year, or if there is progress then it is only ephemeral.

Take for instance the English Premier League at the top of England's football pyramid. How many teams are in it? 20. How many teams have ever played in it since the inception in 1992 (20 years ago)? 45. How many teams have always been in the Premier League? 7. So that means 38 clubs have come and gone in the premier league over time. So on average the 38 revolving door teams that came and went over 20 years would have lasted an average of 1.9 years in the League. That does not indicate progress for a team but rather short term gain followed by decline and difficulty in ever regaining those previous heights.

My suggestion is that the top team in each tier gets a shot at moving up a tier after each 3 year cycle, hence using your 20year cricketer’s life span, a brilliant 20 year old can move his team from tier 3, after a 3 year stay to tier 2, then to tier 1 after another 3, perhaps immediate move from 2 to 1 is a bit far fetched, but after 3 tries (ninth year) then the young fellow now a mature 32 years of age coulod well see his team in the top tier.

Actually no. Because cricket is a team sport and unlike say...basketball, one fellow cannot carry the team. West Indies is a perfect example of this. They had a player who was capable of scoring 400* in a test and they have another player who is basically their go to centurion (Chanderpaul). Even with both Chanderpaul and Lara in the team together for 12 years (1994-2006), West Indies did not move up the rankings but were resolutely stuck at a rank of No. 8.

West Indies also an example of how a tier system would actually have prevented a team from achieving it's best heights. Look back at the time immediately prior to West Indies' golden period. Under Clive Lloyd they did well against India and Pakistan at first before being walloped 5-1 by the Australians. Now the ICC has gone and done historical rankings (http://www.icc-cricket.com/match_zone/h ... anking.php) so once can see what a tier system would have achieved. Firstly with WI ranked at 4 and then dropping down to 5 in 1974, any tier system would have meant WI would have been in the second tier going into 1975 and that they would not have played and beaten India (which helped to boost their ranking to number 2 throughout 1975). It also means they would never have been beaten 5-1 by the Australians since they would obviously not play Australia as a tier 1 team. Now why was this 5-1 walloping important? Because Clive Lloyd had cited it as the driving force behind his restructuring of the team and behind the team's quest for perfection after which resulted in West Indies never losing a test series between that 5-1 beat down by the Aussies and the 1979/80 series against New Zealand and then from 1980 and 1995.

Just another note, seeing as you use football as an example, I always find that the fact that England is in a group of Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, San Marino, Ukraine (as an example) simply a futile exercise as one can predict who will move to the next round, before wasting everyone’s time and congesting fixtures ad nauseam (not to mention artificially boosting England’s status on Fifa rankings), why not have Moldova, San Marino Montenegro have a play off with a permutation of any of the other 3 (England, Ukraine and Poland) then have a smaller, competively meaningful group after the minnows are eliminated, or even better still have the 3 (Moldova, San Marino and Montenegro) in a competively meaningful prelim group, winner joining England, Ukraine and Poland for a group of four which will not congest the big boys' diaries. Not really sure who actually enjoys England vs Moldova or San Marino.

"competitively meaningful" would mean between teams of similar rank but it also basically means you are condemning teams to never being challenged into becoming better because you group them perpetually with only teams of like quality. Australia in football is a good example of what a tier system would do to retard teams that have real potential. Australia has a relatively small footballing fraternity (considering Australia's population combined with the popularity of the rugby codes, Aussie Rules footie, cricket and other sports). Yet Australia was always grouped with Oceania teams for qualify and invariably would come out on top (as in a tier system), get a play off match against a mid-ranked team from another confederation (equivalent to moving up into a new division) and either fail to make it through to the World Cup or would find themselves not doing as well in the World Cup if they did make it through due to a dearth of matches against other teams of different qualities. This was the entire motivation behind Australia's move from the Oceania confederation to the Asian confederation where you have a greater number of teams which vary greatly in quality from Japan, South Korea and Iran (ranked in the top 50 in the world) to Cambodia, Macau, Kyrgyzstan and Bhutan (all ranked at 190 or worse).

Besides isn’t this what we are already doing for the Cricket world cups? Not everyone is invited, there are playoffs for the minnows then there are preliminary rounds to eliminate the weaker teams (Bangladesh, Zim, Ireland and one of NZ or WI) then the proper competitions take place, and note as shown by WI in the last T20 Cup, even these “lesser” teams can rise to the top. So the system isn’t as exclusive as you seem to imply. The difference is that for test it would be over longer times and continuous. So I do believe that if Zim is organised and has the talent it can work its way up to the top.

Note though that in this example you still have stratification of the lesser teams in which you find a set of teams which are perpetually in the world cup: Ireland, Scotland, the Netherlands, Kenya, Canada and sometimes Namibia.

I can safely say that Kuwait has zero or near to zero chance of ever playing a major team whether in the world cup or otherwise.

So this is not an example of how the system can work to improve cricket globally rather than lead to some teams become stuck....

2. Even if you lengthen the FTP to 14-15 years, you have not solved the problem that the tiers intend to solve, i.e. reluctance for the top teams to accommodate the minnows,

Actually the reluctance directly stems from the compressed time frame of the FTP. Prior to the FTP tours by the top teams to various minnows were actually common place. One for example could find that the Australians would stop in Bermuda if they were going to play West Indies and many teams would stop in Ceylon/Sri Lanka if they were going to play a series in India. (I can readily think of Aussie tours (note the plural) of Ceylon in the 1930s, West Indies tours of Ceylon in the 1960s and 1980s, Indian tours of Ceylon in the 1940s, etc). And quite a few of these matches were 3-day matches. Now is it any wonder that Sri Lanka performed so well when they were finally made into a full member in 1981?

Is it also any wonder than Bangladesh have fared so poorly since they got test status in 2000 only for the ICC to introduce the FTP in 2001 (as a 5 year program, extended to 6 years in 2006 and now with the latest program being 8-9 years at 2011-2020)?

and more importantly the farcical nature of the one sided contests that pertains. I don’t see any value in Zim playing Aus, SA, Eng, Ind in Tests to be honest,

That's you, but if you don't want to watch them you don't have to. Most of the new test nations experienced extremely one sided affairs when they started out. If everyone agreed that such farcical contests should be avoided then only Australia and England would have ever played test cricket. Period. I wouldn't even dare to include South Africa because South Africa were probably worse when they started out than Bangladesh has ever been in their 12 years as a test nation. Most test nations took a number of years to win their first test (New Zealand took quite a while if I am not mistaken). But importantly for them they were continuously being exposed to good sides and in the process got better themselves. At the same time though they played good sides regularly the frequency of play was such that they weren't crammed with cricket and had time to play more tour matches. Looking back, NZ played their first test in 1930 and did not win their first test match until 1956. This represented 45 matches in 26 years. Contrast this with Bangladesh which played 45 matches and had won 1 during that time, but had done all of this in 7 years instead of 26. So NZ played 1.7 test matches per year, while Bangladesh played 6.4. However, note that I am fairly sure that NZ probably played 6 matches a year or more when one includes tour matches (as quite often there were more tour matches than there were test matches and sometimes (at least once) the full NZ team would go on tours in which they only played tour matches - so NZ quite possibly played 4-5 multi-innings matches per year). Bangladesh on the other hand does not have the luxury of tour matches anymore because of the unrealistically short scheduling.

even if they were happy to accommodate us. However Ireland, Bangladesh, and to a lesser extent WI and NZ, with a 3 year review period (promotion/relegation play offs) makes perfect sense for me.

How so? Ireland are NOT serious about playing test cricket. I've already established elsewhere that Ireland's administrators seem to want to parasitize on England's first class structure and have never been serious about setting up their own multi-innings domestic cricket which could then become classed as first-class by the ICC if they asked. I've followed Ireland's cricket and their performance against a first-and-a-half string Zimbabwe XI in the intercontinental cup and against a first-class team in the West Indies left me underwhelmed to say the least. Plus unlike Bangladesh, WI, NZ and Zimbabwe there is literally no structure available in Ireland to enable them to find replacements in case their County Cricket squad were somehow unavailable. Look at the recent WI-Bangladesh series. Bangladesh has found some new players who have done some pretty good bowling. Ireland won't be able to do that because they consistently (and entirely) rely on England's county system to develop their players. There is no multi-innings cricket in Ireland outside of the intercontinental cup and the matches of the intercontinental cup are based on a squad that plays ALL of their multi-innings domestic cricket outside of Ireland.


As things are, Zim and Bangla wait for their once a year bilateral relations, which frankly never seem to grow past that. Surely if one of these guys were able to move a tier up, they’d get to play more high level cricket and more importantly would have earned the right to. Even if they are not promoted, they are guaranteed cricket around the year within whatever tier they are in, surely this is infinitely better than what pertains currently?

3. Granted, and I alluded to this as well, ODI and T20 would be an interesting challenge. I suggest that is left unaffected (un-Tiered), but grouped conveniently to allow mini Test seasons within each tier within each cricketing season, i.e. why not have blocks of Test months, and non-Test months.

Because test cricket is played across the globe and not just in one hemisphere. Therefore you need to take the global seasons into account. You cannot play test cricket in England between December and February (and really and truly it is too cold to play between November and March but due to the compressed nature of the FTP they have even had test matches played when first-class county matches have been cancelled due to the temperature!). You also should not really play test cricket during the Caribbean hurricane season (July-November) or during the subcontinental monsoon season (May to November). If Earth had a nice, uniform system of weather then fine, one could have a block of test months (say the dry season) and a block of non-test months (say the rainy season when one could hope to have matches not affected by rain, but at least have the option of reserve days in case of rain). This by the way is the reason why the IPL's scheduling causes so many headaches - it is scheduled at a time of year when most other cricket in India is generally not played (due to the weather) and is also scheduled at a time when the weather is great for cricket in England (no snow!) and West Indies (no hurricanes or rain!) and when those countries can plan to host other teams or to send their full teams on tour.

This is not that strange, e.g. currently Proteas and Aus are squaring off on an exclusively Test tour. Zim has done non-Test tours in the past exclusively with no hitch. The trick is to be able to block off certain time slots for Tests, and around these all can be ODI and T20 tours. Yes logistically this could be challenging,

Actually, logistically it is probably impossible without either:

a. controlling the weather

b. having the tiers be geographically based rather than rank based

4. Agreed about the practise tours, but the tier would only allow this more, i.e. a tier of four would free up so much space, and I would go as far as saying A team tours playing once off matches with a lower tier team is mutually beneficial.

Extending the FTP also frees up a lot of space without having teams basically never face top quality opposition unless they are lucky enough to grab a spot in an system which subjectively divides teams of similar institutional and structural backgrounds simply for the sake of replicating the perceived success of such systems in a domestic set up.

5. Not to sure about the interpolation idea in the FC systems, i.e. teams from different leagues facing off, but sounds good, but it would be complex to pull off,

Only in the context of the current system which attempts to cram too much cricket into too little time. The interpolation of FC systems was a bit more regular, if informal in the past. For instance first-class teams from England frequently went on tour around the world (usually the MCC or some Lord's So-and-So XI) and I know West Indian and Australian domestic teams used to tour England at times.

and inherently the imbalance in quality of FC systems would lead to the one sided matches,

This is based on an assumption that there is an inherent imbalance in the quality of FC systems. We won't know for sure if teams in different FC systems don't play each other and play each other under home and away conditions. For example Canterbury (NZ) might play Yorkshire and lose badly in Yorkshire. Does this mean that NZ's system is worse than England's? Not necessarily. It might just mean that Canterbury are not used to playing in the kind of conditions you might find in Yorkshire. If Yorkshire were to then go to NZ and play Canterbury at home and consistently beat them at home it would indicate that Yorkshire's team is used to playing in a system which prepares them better than Canterbury's team for first-class cricket.

unless we are talking of Zim Select in the Sunflower SA competition, and Bangladeshi Select in the Indian FC “tour/exhibition tour”, and perhaps NZ select in the Aus FC again as a “tour/exhibition tour”. Or are you alluding to a CL style FC?

Well the Zim Select and Bangladeshi Select and exhibition tours would be fine. Not thinking of a CL style FC system. Just for some regular matches between FC teams from neighbouring countries (so India-Pakistan, India-Sri Lanka, Pakistan-Bangladesh, South Africa-Zimbabwe-Namibia, Australia-NZ and England-WI).

In summary I get most of your arguments, but find that if anything the Tier system would aid and not hinder most of what you propose.

Thanks, but I still don't see a tier system as helping in any way that a simple lengthening of the FTP and the reintroduction of more tour matches wouldn't do in a much better way.

[eugene]

Whatever tier Zimbabwe is in, the results won't be good.

[sloandog]

Whatever tier Zimbabwe is in, the results won't be good.

Optimistic as always

[Boundary]

I have never been convinced by tiers and JHunter has done a good job of putting the main points across. But let's look at it at the basic level: there are 4 points of views. The top teams like SA and Aus, the mid teams like England and Pak, the informal minnows like Zim and Bang, and finally the formal minnows/associates like Ireland.

1. If I am SA, my concern would be that the cash cows (i.e. India and England) drop out of my top tier. Then Aus and SA will still make decent money from domestic series but touring won't be as profitable if you exclude Ind and Eng for a lengthy period of time.

2. Admittedly, all the excitement is with the middle group. Look at how Pak has risen since they last played us! England herself has been steadily rising since the mid 90s (thanks to at least a couple of Zimbos) and SL (now that they've started shedding some legendary names) & NZ oscillate more than a woman's moods (sorry!). And yet I don't see how this group will agree to a tier system because the basis for NZ's improvements, say, is the regular matches against the likes of SA and Aus. Take that away for a few years what happens?

3. Us and Bang are basically powerless. Full members but we command no respect from the public, so a close match against Pak is immediately overshadowed by a calamitous showing in NZ and everyone goes "see, what did I tell you?" So if a tier system is foisted on us we can't really do anything about it but I don't see why we should agree to it. We have full membership and everything must be done to keep it. Secondly, we need the ability to improve, to get better and eventually be competitive if given proper matches. And that depends on having a solid domestic system (which we have but Bang don't). It also needs a change in psychology, to believe that if we play 5 or 7 test matches, we will not lose all of them.Once we do that we will be like WI and NZ, churning out a couple of superstars but with a foundation of a hardworking team ethic.

4. Ireland are hard done by but there's a reason why they're not full members yet, politics aside. What they must do is stop trying to pull Zim and Bang down to them and focus of establishing a FC structure, regular ODI series and then they will automatically get there, because they are very close. But like Kenya before them, it's easy to lose everything when the current impressive generation melts away. Those need to be augmented now. They also have the adv of being next to England and having a 1st world economy. But so do Canada and Netherlands, whose problems are probably something else. Afghanistan is impressing. The associate world is a hive of activity but the world cup must be used to open a window. An Afgh vs Aus might be one-sided but it'll allow an Afghani quick bowler to get noticed by the Aus crowd in particular and the rest of the world in general.

So all in all, I don't see why a tiered system should be adopted if it's only England and India, and to a lesser extent, SA and Aus, who will not lose anything much. It's a bad solution which causes more problems whilst trying to fix fixture congestion (or in our case, none existence). All that needs to be done is to have a more structured FTP, with no room for ad hoc arrangements and heavy penalties for withdrawal, even through mutual consent. So a 9 year FTP, with 9 away series and 9 home ones, or 18 away and 18 home, will see a round robin-like scenario. (Alternatively, a 5 year FTP with 2 home series per season, 2 away). All series should be 3 test matches minimum, with additional two for your Ashes, SA vs Aus or Indi vs Pak etc. If Zim or Bang have lost all 54 test matches on the trot then seriously why should they remain test nations?

[eugene]

Whatever tier Zimbabwe is in, the results won't be good.

Optimistic as always

I try my best.

[JHunter]

I have never been convinced by tiers and JHunter has done a good job of putting the main points across.

Thank you.

But let's look at it at the basic level: there are 4 points of views. The top teams like SA and Aus, the mid teams like England and Pak, the informal minnows like Zim and Bang, and finally the formal minnows/associates like Ireland......

You've done a pretty good job of showing why a tier system would in essence eventually spell the death of test cricket as revenues dry up once the cash cows of India and England eventually drop out of the top tier.

So all in all, I don't see why a tiered system should be adopted if it's only England and India, and to a lesser extent, SA and Aus, who will not lose anything much. It's a bad solution which causes more problems whilst trying to fix fixture congestion (or in our case, none existence). All that needs to be done is to have a more structured FTP, with no room for ad hoc arrangements and heavy penalties for withdrawal, even through mutual consent. So a 9 year FTP, with 9 away series and 9 home ones, or 18 away and 18 home, will see a round robin-like scenario. (Alternatively, a 5 year FTP with 2 home series per season, 2 away). All series should be 3 test matches minimum, with additional two for your Ashes, SA vs Aus or Indi vs Pak etc. If Zim or Bang have lost all 54 test matches on the trot then seriously why should they remain test nations?

Actually I don't see why all the focus is on winning or losing test matches. To the best of my knowledge there is no stipulation and there has never been any stipulation that a test nation must not lose a certain amount of test matches in order to remain a test nation. Test status is about the structure you have in place to support and play test matches. NOT about how many you can win or lose.

And this focus on winning or losing misses the point of test cricket methinks. Test cricket was once originally timeless and is now restricted to 5 days and unlike other forms of cricket specifically allows for an outcome other than winning or losing: the draw (which many people erroneously describe as not being a "result" but that is not correct as a draw is different from a no-result in test cricket and a draw is a result; it is just that many people seem to have lost appreciation for the fact that sometimes the result can have both teams neither winning or losing...to me that is one of the beauties of test cricket).

I would say a better focus is on how well teams perform in a given test match regardless of the result. If Bangladesh lose all 54 test matches but in the process manage to say...take 80% of those test matches deep into the fourth day or into the fifth day and consistently post scores of 300+ in at least one innings, why should they be deprived of test status? After all, taking matches into Day 4 or Day 5 and posting scores of 300+ is generally considered a creditable performance. If on the other hand Bangladesh were to fold and lose 80% of those test matches inside of two days and failed to post scores of over 250 in any given innings then I would say, yes their test status might come into question since that would clearly indicate something is not right with their first-class structure. At that point I might be willing to advocate a suspension of test status (but not full member status since as far as I know that should only be related to having a first-class system in place) and the continuation of first-class status while some overhaul is done of the domestic system to fix the problems identified.

[Jemisi]

Agree with you on draws, they are a result that involves both teams neither winning nor losing.