The International Cricket Council (ICC), for a while, has tried unsuccessfully to introduce two divisions in Test cricket. The logic behind the idea was to reduce the number of one-sided contests. It was said that two tiers with relegation and promotion would make things interesting as well as add context to matches that appear meaningless.
One reason this could not be implemented was because the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) opposed the idea. The richest board said it was its duty to protect weaker nations. Those who follow cricket politics were certain that the board’s concern over voting equations in the ICC was the more prominent reason behind this stand, not the welfare of the game.
The ongoing Test series against Sri Lanka and many more matches involving teams like the West Indies and Zimbabwe prove that there was substance in what the ICC was thinking. The last few years have seen a decline in the standards of Test cricket. Only a handful of countries in an already small pool are capable of producing the kind of competition that defines sports. There are too many matches where one team outplays the other. Apart from India, Australia, England, South Africa, New Zealand and to an extent—Pakistan— others are usually dismal. The bottom line: Nobody pays to watch mediocrity.
And Sri Lanka’s tour of India is an addition to this growing list of lopsided contests, where the dominant team inevitably decimates the opposition. While it’s not the Indian team’s fault if Sri Lanka or other teams are woeful, it’s for the BCCI to think whether its opposition to the proposal has done the game any good. Meaningless matches have not decreased the market value of the Indian team or cricket in the country yet, but in other places, sponsors have started looking elsewhere. Survival is indeed a major concern for those boards. Strangely, the BCCI still does not realise that for Indian cricket to prosper, there have to be teams able enough to compete.