Fans of Test cricket finally have something to ease that growing sense of dread that has been creeping up on us since the cricketing world started having wet dreams about the abomination that is Twenty20. The ICC board have decided that the cricket world needs a championship of Test cricket, complete with play-offs and a final. They are also planning to leave aside one year in four to play “icon” series such as the Ashes or an India-Pakistan series.

Whether or not this would work is irrelevant, the mere fact that long-term plans are being made for Test cricket is encouraging enough. The consolidation of the icon series will make for an exciting year, but will lead to split series or, worse, only getting to see these series every eight years in your home country.

Besides, what are the icon series these days? The Ashes are traditionally held up as such, but are rapidly being eclipsed by the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. One more pathetic capitulation by England could well see the Ashes reduced to a secondary competition – a tragedy for any cricket lover.

With the ICC, however, when they deliver something good, it is always accompanied by something much less encouraging. This ICC Board has made an art-form of turning a blind eye to all that is wrong with the cricketing world and they have taken it to another level with some of their latest decisions. The Board has yet again ignored calls to sanction Zimbabwe Cricket mainly, it seems, to ensure that the BCCI can maintain control of the Board.

Admittedly, the problems in Zimbabwe are too big for the ICC alone to do anything about and they are not the only cricketing nation with questionable political control (nobody ever questions Pakistan’s dictatorship, for example). The difference with Zimbabwe is that they are channelling ICC funds into Mugabe’s regime and that amounts to tacit approval of what is going on there.

It doesn’t stop there either. The board then went on to rewrite the history books to change the result of the infamous test between England and Pakistan. The books now have no mention of a forfeit; the game is officially recorded as a draw. Regardless of the facts of the case surrounding the correctness of Darrell Hair’s actions, Pakistan forfeited the game by refusing to come back onto the field.