Test Cricket's World Championship:
Devising a system
The idea that there should be an official test cricket "World Champion" has gained some support of late, especially following articles by Matthew Engel in Wisden Cricket Monthly and in the 1997 Wisden Cricketer's Almanack.
Matthew Engel's system is a league table, taking into account the most recent series results (home and away) between each of the nine test playing nations. A similar, if slightly more complex system was recently devised by Australian Rodney Ross , and appeared on the popular (nay invaluable) Cricinfo site.
However, all league based systems have a number of problems, not least a degree of complexity allied to arbitrary rules on points systems, and questions of how to deal with sides who have played more series than others. The "fairer" and more "accurate" the compiler tries to be the more complex the formulas become, until you reach the heights of advanced mathematics that underlie things like the Deloitte ratings for test cricketers.
And yet there is an alternative and, moreover, an alternative that most followers of the game, and certainly the media, effectively use - but more often that not without realising it. It is a system that gains official recognition in few sports these days (although it was quite popular in the nineteenth century) and is based on the simple notion that to become champion you must defeat the existing champion.
Thus when Australia, in the spring of 1996, were universally declared the new "World Champions" this was not on the basis of a complex league system, but on the simple fact that they had just defeated the West Indies, who until that stage had been considered the best in the world.
Using this method I have produced a complete list of World Champions since the beginning of test cricket. I have also extended the concept to produce a full test cricket "ladder" based on the equally simple concept that if you beat a side higher than you then you move to a place one above them in the league (if you draw you both stay where you are). To be honest I am not as confident about this system as there tend to be more "anomolous" results among the lower ranked sides, which can temporarily catapult sides to unreasonably high places in the listing (though these tend to be quickly "rectified" by later events). However the top teams are normally pretty well established under all systems - Australia, South Africa, India and the West Indies - Zimbabwe's current acendancy being an bit of anomoly (?)
I would be delighted to receive comments on these ideas. Please eMail me (john.birch@ukonline.co.uk).
Details of the World Champions from 1876 to date
Some highlights and notes
The current test cricket "ladder"
The current Engel/Wisden league table
The
Cricinfo/Rodney Ross league table
Compiled by John
Birch, Letchworth Garden City, England