Mark Butcher criticizes ICC for introducing the World Test Championship, saying that it has made matters worse

Mark Butcher, a former cricket player for England, believes that the ICC World Test Championship (WTC) has had a negative impact on the longest format.

Due to conflicting dates between the two competitions, South Africa’s best cricket players are now signed to play in the SA20’s second season, leaving them with a severely diminished team for the next Test series in New Zealand.

Butcher said on the Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast that “one of the things that’s made this even more inevitable is something that they’ve done to try to salvage Test match cricket, which is the World Test Championship.”

The key is that your bilateral series has to pique the interest of both the players and supporters of the two participating nations, as well as the larger cricket-watching audience. And their competitiveness is the only thing that makes them that way. And things have always been that way.

Following the announcement of up to seven uncapped players in a 14-man team for the two-Test series by Cricket South Africa (CSA), former Australia captain Steve Waugh also vented his frustrations at the BCCI, the International Cricket Council (ICC), and other major cricket bodies.

Test match series as well as individual Test matches were significant occasions in and of themselves. It becomes much more unclear when you expand it to include about three years and say things like, “Some series are worth this, some series are worth that,” and “Some teams can’t be asked this week.”

Butcher said that “the only attempt that has been made to kind of try and keep it relevant has made it worse.”

Butcher believes that rather than launching the WTC, the ICC should have concentrated on other important matters to ensure the survival of Test cricket.

“I’m not sure; the effort has been put in all the wrong areas. And the areas where it may have really mattered, such as leveling up TV rights money and enabling nations to retain their greatest players…

“I have no problem with them paying a standard amount of money for appearances in Test matches and other events, but letting the wealthier boards pay their players whatever they want on top of that.”

But if you ask me, this is simply a surrender. Up until now, the automobile collision has been happening slowly, but suddenly there has been a sudden impact.