Wisden calls World Test Championship a ‘shambles’ and makes case for reform
Wisden hits the shelves this week and, as well as unveiling its latest batch of award winners, it has trained its sights on the International Cricket Council,The World Test Championship, the book argues, is a “shambles masquerading as a showpiece”,The publication of the sport’s annual bible is timely, with the future of the WTC discussed recently at ICC meetings in Zimbabwe,In typically opaque fashion, the sport’s governing body is yet to announce the outcome of the debate,Sources suggest the 2025-27 WTC is likely to remain the same, with nine teams and an asymmetrical two‑year fixture list producing two finalists.
Writing in his notes the Wisden editor, Lawrence Booth, has made the case for a four-year all‑play‑all format, highlighting South Africa’s spot in the final at Lord’s this summer despite a paltry diet of two-match series and having faced neither England nor Australia en route.“Among the first items in [the ICC chair Jay] Shah’s in-tray ought to be the World Test Championship, a shambles masquerading as a showpiece,” Booth writes.“This is not South Africa’s fault.It may even be to their benefit, if the path from laughing stocks to Lord’s persuades their board that Test cricket is worth saving.“The ICC cannot allow the championship to continue as if designed on the back of a fag packet.
Double its length to four years, like football and rugby, and ensure the top nine in the rankings all play each other, home and away, over series of at least three Tests.”The catch, as ever, is India’s ongoing refusal to play in Pakistan on geopolitical grounds – something that came to a head during the recent Champions Trophy when Rohit Sharma’s eventual winners were based in Dubai for the entire tournament.This in turn highlighted India’s dominance at board level, with Shah having switched from secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India to ICC chair last December while the issue was being debated.Booth writes: “The communal shrug [that met Shah’s appointment] confirmed a sorry truth: 2024 was the year cricket gave up any claim to being properly administered, with checks, balances, and governance for the many, not the few.India already had the monopoly: now they had hotels on Park Lane and Mayfair.
”Elsewhere Wisden features moving first-person tributes to Graham Thorpe by Alec Stewart and Thorpe’s wife, Amanda, with the latter keen to raise awareness and understanding of the depression and anxiety that led the former England batter to take his own life last August.“Some people say suicide is selfish,” Amanda Thorpe writes.“But I have so much compassion for what he went through.He didn’t deserve it.No one does.
”Sign up to The SpinSubscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers' thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week’s actionafter newsletter promotionThis year’s five Wisden cricketers of the year – the award that can be won only once and recognises performances during the previous English summer – includes three Surrey players in Jamie Smith, Gus Atkinson and Dan Worrall, as well as Liam Dawson and Sophie Ecclestone.Jasprit Bumrah is the leading men’s cricketer in the world, with compatriot Smriti Mandhana claiming the equivalent women’s award.In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123.In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14.In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is at 988.
Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org
‘When medieval times return, I’ll be ready’: Bella Ramsey on friendship, fashion and The Last of Us
The young actor’s life has been transformed since they landed the lead role in what turned out to be a TV phenomenon. As the much-anticipated second season begins, they discuss growing up in the glare of fameBella Ramsey self-recorded their audition tape for The Last of Us at their parents’ home in Leicestershire and sent it off more in hope than expectation. Ramsey, who was 17 at the time, had never played the post-apocalyptic zombie video game on which the new TV series was based, but knew it was a big deal: released in 2013, it had sold more than 20m copies. It would later emerge that Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, the show’s creators, looked seriously at more than 100 actors for the role of Ellie, the sassy and quirky but also complicated and vicious American protagonist of The Last of Us. “Yeah, I’ve been told,” says Ramsey with a wry smile
Sunday with Paul Chowdhry: ‘I’ll have a big brunch, then lie around watching YouTube’
Sunday highlights? The farmers’ market in north London, now that I’ve worked my way into being middle-class. I’ll buy smoked trout, organic chickens, pheasant, vegetables and a very good Chinese chilli oil.How do you get there? On one of those electric bikes, like Uber cyclists. I’m usually stealthed up with a mask, else people go: ‘There’s Paul Chowdhry on a bike. What you doing on a bike, bruv?’Do you cook? I live on my own, so I have no choice
Jameela Jamil: ‘I used to be a massive troll and bitch on the internet’
What’s been your most cringeworthy run-in with a celebrity?I knocked over Al Pacino at a party. It was at the head of UTA’s house back in maybe 2015. I’d stolen a bunch of food – they had really good wagyu steaks, so I took 10 wrapped in a cloth napkin, they were kind of bleeding. I bundled them in between my legs, underneath my miniskirt, and was shuffling as fast as I could out of the party when I knocked over Al Pacino. And then I left him on the ground, because the steaks flew out from under my skirt, leaving this bloody streak across the white floor
On my radar: Romola Garai’s cultural highlights
Born in Hong Kong in 1982, actor Romola Garai grew up in Singapore and Wiltshire. She has starred in films including Atonement and Suffragette, and TV series The Hour and The Miniaturist. Her directorial debut, the horror film Amulet, was released in 2020. Last year Garai portrayed Annie Ernaux in Eline Arbo’s adaptation of The Years at the Almeida theatre, later transferring to the Harold Pinter theatre, for which she won best actress in a supporting role at the 2025 Olivier awards. Now she stars alongside Ivanno Jeremiah and Jamelia in new BBC Three comedy drama, Just Act Normal, available on iPlayer
From Sinners to Étoile: a complete guide to this week’s entertainment
SinnersOut now Michael B Jordan plays twins, Smoke and Stack, who return home to Mississippi during the prohibition era with the aim of setting up a juke joint. Ryan Coogler’s supernatural horror also stars Hailee Steinfeld, Jack O’Connell and Wunmi Mosaku.WarfareOut now Starring D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis and Joseph Quinn, this real-time thriller is based on US marines’ memories of a mission in Iraq. And it’s from an intriguing pair of directors: Alex Garland, one of the most brilliant of current film-makers, and Ray Mendoza, a former US Navy Seal who took part in the sortie.Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien StoryOut now The Irish author, who died last year, is the compelling subject of this documentary portrait, which features final interviews with O’Brien, a writer who counted Paul McCartney, Shirley MacLaine, Jane Fonda and Laurence Olivier among her friends
William Morris’s legacy of radical creativity | Letters
Re your editorial (The Guardian view on William Morris: how the Strawberry Thief took over the world, 11 April), William Morris developed the Strawberry Thief pattern at his Merton Abbey Works on the banks of the River Wandle.The workers who turned the design into a “swinish luxury” formed a close-knit community – the carpet knotter Eliza Merritt remembered “a tradition of comradeship”– whose members lived long, creative lives. The tapestry weaver William Sleath was rescued from destitution by Morris, who took him on as an apprentice at age seven.Sleath became a sensitive artist who continued to produce oils and watercolours into his 70s. His fellow weavers Walter Taylor and William Knight painted still lifes and scenes around Merton Abbey
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