Stop talking nonsense and run the game properly - Chris Waters

They make it sound like the 2005 Ashes, as opposed to the waste deposit that it actually is, one that pollutes the cricketing ecosystem and has a knock-on effect on everything else.

Thanks to The Hundred, the County Championship is squeezed into April and September, the One-Day Cup is a quasi-second team tournament, the T20 Blast has been badly compromised and international cricket increasingly condensed to make room for a format in which “every ball counts” – for nothing.

Which brings us to a press release that landed in this inbox on Tuesday and which is now residing in the folder marked “Trash”.

It came from our friends at MCC, who proudly announced that the ICC World Test Championship final is to come to Lord’s for the first time next year, having been held at Southampton and The Oval in its first two editions.

The match, which starts on June 11, will be contested between the top two teams in the ongoing two-year cycle of lop-sided series and/or mismatches, the concept designed to give Test cricket context having brought only confusion and cool indifference.

It’s just as well that the press release tells us the current position, with India and Australia, apparently, in the top two places, for one supposes that most people wouldn’t have a Scooby Doo; England, for the record, are in fifth.

What really got this dander up, though, were remarks within the MCC release by Geoff Allardice, the ICC chief executive.

Allardice alleged, as though being made to type the words at gunpoint, the following piffle: “The ICC World Test Championship Final has quickly become one of the most anticipated events in the cricketing calendar and we are pleased to announce the dates for the 2025 edition.

“It’s a testament to the enduring appeal of Test cricket, which continues to captivate fans around the world.

“Tickets will be in high demand, so I would encourage fans to register their interest now to ensure they are in with a chance of attending the Ultimate Test next year.”

So much is wrong with those three sentences that, rather like a mosquito in a nudist colony, one barely knows where to start.

Let’s just bite at the flesh in order of appearance...

“The ICC World Test Championship Final has quickly become one of the most anticipated events in the cricketing calendar.” By whom, Mr Allardice? By the supporters? By the players? To whom are you referring? No one, it seems to me, anticipates it with anything but apathy.

“It’s a testament to the enduring appeal of Test cricket, which continues to captivate fans around the world.” Er, hang about, Mr Allardice. Have you seen the attendance figures for Test cricket around the world? In some countries they are negligible. People don’t care. White-ball has changed everything. Test cricket, in many parts, is on its knees.

“Tickets will be in high demand, so I would encourage fans to register their interest now to ensure they are in with a chance of attending the Ultimate Test next year.”

“Ultimate Test”? Yuck. “High demand”? Depends who’s playing. What about the poor ticket sales for the ongoing England-Sri Lanka series, with sky-high prices and one-sided cricket? People want to watch a contest, Mr Allardice. It’s been hard to get up this year for the series against West Indies and Sri Lanka.

No, far better that Allardice and his kind stopped talking nonsense and run the game properly, a game that sees England going straight into a white-ball series against Australia the day after the scheduled conclusion of this week’s third Test.

Domestically, the picture is progressively concerning. Right now, the T20 Blast quarter-finals are going on almost seven weeks after the group stage finished.

What good is that for continuity, for interest levels and integrity? Last month, Yorkshire got to the end of the One-Day Cup group stage with no idea whether - or where - they were going to be playing a potential quarter-final two days later, or a potential semi-final two days after that. Why, one didn’t know whether to pack one pair of underpants for the journey, three or five.

In the end it didn’t matter because Yorkshire got knocked out. After the semis, there was/is a 35-day gap to the final itself.

This is crazy - all three domestic competitions, and England’s international summer, thrown out of sync while administrators tell us that everything’s great.