A MAJOR exercise in futility was gone through earlier this year. One of the countries involved clearly wasn't interested but then sometimes one has to be "nice". The points system was a bit lopsided but who bothers? The Asian Test championship ended with Pakistan the supposed Asian champion. And I'm sure the ICC will be patting itself on its collective back for having organised a "successful" championship. One must overlook the fact that Pakistan more or less ensured that Sri Lanka would be their opponents in the final.
This may be a cynical view, but in the last decade there has been a big move towards pitting India and Pakistan against each other in cricketing contests, the simple reason being that there is a lot of money to be made. Toronto is a prime example. This is exactly what the organisers of the championship hoped for as well.
For most Indian cricket fans, the ideal end to any competition would be a tilt with Pakistan ending in victory for India. For Pakistan cricket fans, the same script is fine with just one difference -- Pakistan should come out the victors. The trend began in Sharjah -- in fact, that centre has no other raison d'etre -- and has become a lucrative milch cow. The third or fourth team which is involved in these contests is irrelevant though increasingly they tend to spoil the party and demolish the organisers' dreams.
The point behind a championship is simple -- it is the same logic which drives my three-year-old son to proclaim that his Batman suit is better than that of his friend Aaron. Mine is better than yours; mine is bigger than yours; or as Tom Sawyer put it, "my big brother is bigger than yours and can thrash him," when in reality such a bloke did not exist.
The problem comes(when attempts are made to translate this into reality. If one goes by the logic employed by the online cricket database Cricinfo, then Zimbabwe were at one point recently the world Test champions! I suspect they used this argument -- very well reasoned, believe me -- to show how absurd this whole move towards a Test championship is. The idea which Matthew Engel has floated, that of a points system to determine the top team at any given moment, makes much better sense. But then remember that this business is driven by money, not commonsense.
When the idea of a Test championship was floated, there were many who jumped on the bandwagon. This lasted until it was realised that with the commitments which countries like Australia, England and the West Indies have (and will not give up since it keeps the funds coming in for cricket to be run as a business), it would not be logistically possible to organise one.
The next best thing was a regional contest (and we cannot have an European or American one for obvious reaons) involving teams which are ready to make their players participate in any tournament provided it brings monetary returns. Sri Lanka could not say no, so they joined in. But they clearly had their eyes on defending their World Cup crown, a task which is increasingly being seen as very difficult. So they took part but held off on utilising the services of many players; they continued to rest a good many for the trination tournament (another farce, in my opinion) so that everybody would be fit for the World Cup.
What has the whole exercise with its illogical points system proved? Very little. What if Sri Lanka tours Pakistan next month and hammers the daylights out of the home team? Or if India thrashes Sri Lanka 3-0 in a three-Test series? For how long is this tag of champion valid?
Given the crowded international calendar, it would be far better for the ICC to turn its attention to ensuring that Test cricket is played regularly between countries like Pakistan and India and that countries like Zimbabwe get more exposure against the stronger teams. Championships such as the one which just ended serve little purpose apart from the type of one-upmanship in which three-year-olds indulge.