Wednesday, March 19, 2008

An imbalance In The ICC Tours?

With some great plans by the international Cricket Council to globalise cricket,with sponsoring tournaments featuring teams like Bangladesh,Ireland, Kenya,Bermuda and much more,there is some thing that the cricketing world is not aware of as of yet.The thing is that not test matches of all combinations are being played.


Its been that test matches between some teams are played at regular intervals,while a preferred combination is found to be missed by fans.Some of those events that are found to happen are viz The Ashes-which takes place every two years,An Indo-Pak conflict that is found to take place every year since 2004,The Common Wealth bank Series-A tri nation tournament featuring Australia and two other teams,The Natwest Series in England....a few to name.

But,the other combinations for example:that of Australia & Pakistan,New Zealand and England,India & New Zealand etc are hardly played.The reason?

With Stats under consideration,India last played a test series against New Zealand way back in late 2003.Then an England-New Zealand conflict which is now under progress is happening after 4 years(after New Zealand last toured England in 2004).The last time Australia played Pakistan was in 2004,with the 2008 tour of Australia being in doubt.And its been almost three years since a test series between Australia and New Zealand have taken place.The (two)test series between South Africa & Australia which took place between 2005-06,was after a gap of nearly four years.

But,last year witnessed as many as 10 contests between Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.Though not that serious,I feel that the ICC has to take a re look at its tours' table,keeping in mind the frequency of games played in combination.

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