Cricket tit-bits–Scrap Champions Trophy, writes Matthew Hayden
Even as various cricketing nations are busy formulating a plan to lay their hands on the upcoming ICC Champions Trophy to be held in South Africa, former Australian opener Matthew  Hayden has written in his column in The Independent wanting the Champions Trophy to be scrapped as he feels  it is meaningless to hold the eight-nation tournament along  with a World Cup every four years.
“Why have the Champions Trophy (a 50-over tournament)  when you’ve already got a 50-over World Cup?” Hayden wrote in the column. “There are strong lessons to be learned from the success  achieved in other sports, such as the quadrennial cycle of  football World Cup and UEFA European Championships. Cricket should follow this with a similar cycle of T20  World Cup and ODI World Cup. To maximise coverage these should  be played in odd-numbered years – football major competitions,  and the Olympics, are in even-numbered years. The Champions  Trophy should be scrapped,” Hayden said.
The burly left-hander was also of the opinion that the Twenty20 World Cup should not be  held every second year. “Playing the World Twenty20 every other year is too  much. There’s too much cricket, too much of it is meaningless,  and there are just too many different formats,” he said.
The southpaw also stated that Test cricket can be rejuvenated by a World  Championship and by avoiding matches between heavyweights and  minnows. “If Test cricket is to be the number-one form of the  game, the public, players and financial backers around the  world must be engaged. I propose the establishment of a World Series, or a  ’World Test Championship‘ if you like, which would be on a  rolling calendar with finals every two years. When a team like Australia play a team like Bangladesh  in a Test series, you’ve got problems. It can’t be fun for the  underdogs and it’s no challenge for the favourites. Just as  importantly, it’s not a good spectacle. In my Test World Championship, I’ve left (Bangladesh and  Zimbabwe) out. It won’t be popular, but I believe it’s  necessary,” he added.
He said the scheduling conflict between the Indian  Premier League and international cricket should also end. “The main point of conflict between the IPL and the  established game is in scheduling, particularly the subsequent  clash of players’ contracts. This can be avoided in the future  by creating a two-month window each year – I’d hold it in  March and April – when other forms of the game take a back  seat – no Tests, no World Cup cricket and so on,” he said.
While the opinions written by the Australian questions the essence of having ODI and 20-20 tourneys that are cash cows for the ICC, it will be interesting to see how the cricket’s governing body reacts to this.
