What is sport if there’s no meaningful competitive context?
I came across this image on Twitter this morning and I found it quite startling.
Not because England are at the bottom of the table, but because if you had asked me to guess where they would be ranked, I’d have had very little idea and if I’m honest l don’t really care.
That feels weird because I’m a cricket fan, and a great Test match is still one of the very finest sporting occasions, but most of it just lacks any real meaning, context or jeopardy.
If England win this series against the West Indies (which they will), great.
If they’d have lost it, well it doesn’t really matter.
The World Test Championship is an attempt to solve that problem but it doesn’t really work. It’s too complicated and takes too long (like most cricket competitions).
So, outside of The Ashes (from an England perspective at least) what is Test cricket for?
How are we positioning it? A nice day out with a few beers and a bit of sport as a backdrop, or something real in a sporting sense?
England seem able to fill their Test venues without too much problem because it is a good day out, but does that last forever if the sport itself doesn’t mean much, or is totally uncompetitive?
No easy answers but I do wonder about the long term future of this format.
