The ease with which England steamrolled towards victory over Zimbabwe at Trent Bridge sounded the claxon to renew calls to split Test playing nations into two divisions.
Writing in the Daily Mail, Nasser Hussain both questioned whether Zimbabwe should be playing Test cricket and proposed that a two-tier structure which allows them to play more of it would benefit them. “In any contest, you want to turn up feeling that both sides have the opportunity to win and you didn’t feel like that at Trent Bridge,” he wrote. “That’s why I would be in favour of two divisions, as long as it’s not a closed shop and teams have the chance to win promotion to the top division.”
Those plans loosely echo those the ICC were revealed to be considering earlier this year. Their reported model, which won’t come in now until at least 2027, was for a two tier World Test Championship which would see England, Australia and India play each other three times in every four year cycle. Despite drawing concern from those outside of the ‘big three’, including West Indies great Sir Clive Lloyd, who said “it [the ICC’s plan] must be stopped now”, it found support from other figures in the game.
At the time, Michael Vaughan advocated for a similar structure, writing in The Telegraph that Australia mauling India in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy had “only served to strengthen my [his] views on where the game is headed and what administrators should be looking at… A four-day product with set number of overs each day enforced, three matches minimum per series, and two divisions of six, including promotion and relegation.”
It's worth pointing out here that there is some scope for confusion among those advocating for two-divisional Test cricket, and those supporting a two-divisional World Test Championship. The latter would do nothing to prevent England and Zimbabwe's boards organising a one-off game or series, as they did here. The former would, in theory, see England unable to organise even a non-World Test Championship Ashes series against Australia, should they find themselves in the second tier, at some stage.
Fluent centuries from each of their top three power England to a massive total.#ENGvZIM #Cricket pic.twitter.com/eUrYMTHma7
— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) May 23, 2025
Let's deal with the idea of a two-divisional World Test Championship, as the ICC are considering. Two tiers of six would add all three of Ireland, Zimbabwe and Afghanistan to the World Test Championship structure. They would likely be joined by Bangladesh, West Indies and Pakistan in the lower tier based on the last cycle. One side per cycle would move up and one down in a promotion and relegation format, keeping those teams mostly away from the highest echelons of the sport, but theoretically building up their ability to compete with the best.
Watching the contest, or lack of, in Nottingham, it wasn’t hard to see where the discontent is coming from. There was no spectacle to watch the ease with which Ollie Pope put away Blessing Muzarabani, Zimbabwe’s attack-leader, time after time in Nottingham, nor was there a particular feel that Duckett’s fifth Test hundred, which furthered his statistical exceptionalism, was a hard-won one. Seeing a nation which has produced genuine greats of the game reduced to one granted an ad-hoc red-ball game having been turned over by a county select XI the previous week left a bad taste.
Those advocating for two divisions see that as the solution to both preserve a dying format. They see it both as the way to preserve the number of countries playing it, as well as preventing mismatches to heighten the spectacle of sides locking horns at the pinnacle of the game. Test cricket is dying, therefore any plan to save it could theoretically be worth trying.
But there’s a strong argument to make that Test cricket, rather than being on its deathbed, has never been more competitive than it is right now. Teams who would be in the second tier of any divided system, have regularly challenged those who would be in its first over the last few years, and not only in fleeting moments. Pakistan won their home series against England last winter, dominating the second two matches in their home conditions and with their superior spin attack. West Indies, meanwhile, haven’t lost a home series against England since 2004, and drew a series in Australia last year. Bangladesh drew their last Test series against England 1-1. Framing Sri Lanka’s win over England at The Oval last year as an ‘upset’ also feels disingenuous given they finished next to each other in the last World Test Championship.
Equally, top tier contests can clearly be mismatches too. Despite England not having won a Test match in Australia since 2011, there’s no suggestion they shouldn’t be going Down Under this winter. Lest we forget, England have drawn two and lost 13 of their last 15 Tests in Australia. Their ‘closest’ defeat was a 120-run loss at Adelaide in 2017.
There’s also the slightly more cynical context, that explains why games between England and Australia are never questioned. Games the Big Three – a financial metric, rather than a performance one – don’t play in, don’t make enough money. That’s why their governing bodies are keen to increase the number of series’ they face each other in under a two tier model. By splitting the current teams into two, they can guarantee the more money-making series, while also scheduling in other series for the rest, and in theory share the increased revenue among everyone. Let’s ignore that there’s no clarity on how that would work, or precedent for fair and effective revenue sharing by the ICC for now.
However, if simply increasing the number of times the big three play each other in Tests is the aim of a two tier system, it doesn’t necessarily meet it. England’s performance in the last WTC cycle would put them on the brink of relegation, and if they slipped down into the second tier, that would take away the financial rewards of their series’ against India and Australia for at least two years. If a system is put in place which keeps those three sides free of relegation fears, well, that’s nothing to do with increasing Test cricket’s competitiveness. But increasing the frequency with which those sides play each other doesn’t guarantee those clashes will continue to be cash cows either.
All sports have their best players, their greatest of all timers who cyclically dominate their fields. What makes contests between the best captivating, is their scarcity. For example, Roger Federer played far more early round matches that he dominated in straight sets than he did five hour epics against Rafa Nadal, or even middling contests against the level in between. When Carlos Alcaraz arrives at Wimbledon next month, he’ll still draw the crowds to his opening match against a likely unseeded player, who the seeding system demands he plays to make it easier for him to progress. The point of those systems are to keep the best apart, and protect the scarcity of their encounters to heighten their worth.
Cricket’s response to both the supposed performance disparities and very real financial inequities between Test playing nations has always been to play more of the games that make money and not bother about the rest. But constantly rotating between those series’ will, in time, decrease their worth. It’s a medium term solution at best.
All sport fundamentally requires a contest, and as the top tier of its sport, with a tiny playing pool of teams and a contest that must be sustained over five days, Test cricket requires it more than most. That’s in part why the Zimbabwe contest was reduced to four days, to heighten that contest between two vastly unequal sides. Evidently, that wasn’t close to enough. Nevertheless, there was an importance to that type of fixture happening. If Zimbabwe are kept down in the bottom tier, what hope is there of inspiring players to strive to play the format? Is the reward of a few series in the hope of one day far in the future being able to join the big league enough? If the plan is to save Test cricket, that might go further towards killing it.
Test cricket can survive mismatches, as all sports have to and do largely without as much moral panic and existential crises about the future of the game. There is structural change needed, however, to create a fairer system, one that allows for genuine progress and equity within the game. A model where mismatches are less frequent, and where there’s a genuine possibility that with greater exposure and resources, teams like Zimbabwe can one-day compete, is possible. Money, while not the sole solution to the problems each individual board faces, cannot continue to be hoarded by the elite, and genuine honesty is needed about what healthy Test cricket looks like, that doesn’t give way to misty eyes over a game, and a world that no longer exists. Creating a two tier structure, which divides and limits opportunity, however would be a smokescreen behind which the real problems would be free to fester.
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