Follow UsThe debate of South Africa having an easier path to the World Test Championship (WTC) 2023-25 than the other finalist, Australia, continues, days after the former being crowned champions on June 14.
Proteas legend AB de Villiers has therefore advocated changes to the World Test Championship (WTC) cycle, suggesting that the championship should be extended up to five years and every team should play against the other to make it more fair to every participating nation.
“To a certain extent, something needs to be done,” de Villiers said about the scheduling of the WTC, during the BBC Stumped podcast.
“I saw the schedule that came out for the next cycle of the WTC and there is an improvement, but I still feel there’s work that needs to be done there just to get it as consistent as possible and as fair as possible for all Test-playing nations,” added the 41-year-old.
Suggesting that there should be a four-year cycle, de Villiers said, “You want to get to that final feeling like you’ve played against all these nations. Maybe a four-year cycle would be nice.”
“We’ve done that in the past with one-day internationals, so why not in Test cricket? It would make sense, and it would give the organisers just so much more time to get a really fair, well-balanced system out there.”
South Africa will play their next Test match in October 2026, more than a year and a half after their WTC win, but de Villiers believes that the hunger to see the champions play at home will pull in massive crowds to the stadiums.
“We’ve had some very disappointing and sad ends to a lot of campaigns, especially the World Cups, but now it’s time to start believing that we can do this more often,” added Mr 360 Degrees.