Batting legend Sachin Tendulkar has said that the World Test Championship (WTC) should be held every four years like the World Cup. India and New Zealand will take on each other in the inaugural World Test Championship final in Southampton from Friday, alongside a winners’ cheque of $1.6 million.
“Maybe to generate even more interest, it could become like a World Cup. A World Cup is not played all across the globe. World Cup is played in just one or two countries,” Tendulkar said in a telephone interview to Reuters on Tuesday.
He continued: “We need to decide which are the countries where you can host test championship. And within possibly those two months, you just play test championship. If you are playing one match against each other, then to play final just as a one-off game also makes sense. But if you allow everyone to play entire series and then just play one game as final, then continuity is not there.”
However, this has started two years ago and the top two teams in the points table will play the final. Meanwhile, many stated that the final should have been promoted in a better way as well.
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“You need to shorten that window and compress the whole thing,” Sachin Tendulkar further added. “All teams go and play wherever it is held and that is when the final will have more significance than what it is at this moment. When a 50-over World Cup happens, it goes on for nearly two months and nowhere in the world there is any other format being played during those two months. But along with the WTC final, (currently) there are multiple teams playing in different parts of the world in different formats. To get more eyeballs and get more focus, more engagement, we need to have just one tournament.”
While India head coach Ravi Shastri has said that a best-of-three final would be a great idea to determine the winner at the end of the two-year cycle of the championship. And, the batting maestro has backed his former India teammate as well.
“India played all four tests in Australia, and four test matches against England at home,” Tendulkar explained. “So we have been playing full series to get here and suddenly you get to the final and you just have one match. So it should have been a WTC final series, best of three.”
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“The top two teams who have got there have played some good cricket and that’s why they’re there. It’s important to pick 20 wickets to win a test match, but it is equally important to give enough runs on the board to your bowlers. It’s important to bat well. I think the first session is going to be really critical. Sometimes you just have to ease yourself into a match, anxiety levels are going to be high,” Sachin Tendulkar concluded.
