After the rumours of the introduction of a tier system in test cricket sparked a debate, Graeme Smith has made a strong impression with his views as the proteas have reached the final of the WTC champions 2025 in Lord’s.
South Africa’s qualification for the WTC finals playing only fewer matches than England and India has stirred debates and controversy. Amid these happenings, a two-tier structure in test cricket has sparked a debate.
Smith feels that the need for South Africa, West Indies and Sri Lanka to be stronger to improve the cricket eco-system and questions. “can you see a world where there are only three nations playing cricket in the future?”
“I was just looking at a note this morning at how much England and India are playing each other over the next period, and Australia and vice versa.”
“It gets extremely hard for the other nations… India are probably the best because they are commercially so reliable for the other nations.”
“But where do you find the top three nations playing each other all the time? And you can only imagine in the next FTP cycle how that’s been tied up in the background,” said Smith.
“How does the ICC create a structure that’s fair in the top three’s eyes? I think what world cricket needs is, it needs South Africa to be strong, the West Indies to be strong, needs Sri Lanka to get better. Otherwise,” he added.
“We (South Africa) are in the World Test Championship (WTC) final; we’ve got a chance to win the mace. I think that’s the key,” said Smith.
“You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, and South Africa has done that. I think over the last couple of years, their win percentages are pretty decent if you go and look over a period of time,” Smith said on South Africa.
Meanwhile, Former West Indies captain Clive Lloyd was unimpressed by the suggestion of a two-tier test system as well.
“I think it will be terrible for all those countries who work so hard to get to Test match status and now they’ll be playing among themselves in the lower section,” said Clive Lloyd.
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