Coin tosses to be scrapped from Tests?

ICC’s cricket committee are set to debate whether to scrap coin tosses from Test cricket, starting with the ICC Test Championship, as there is a growing belief that it hands an added advantage to home sides.

The ICC Test Championship will commence in 2019 with the Ashes tour and the league format is meant to revive Test cricket and do away with meaningless Test series which did not have an eventual end goal.

As things stand, the home team captain flips the coin and the visiting captain calls heads or tails. In the English county however, visiting captain chose to bowl first and a coin toss is done if the captain of the home side wants one given that the home side might liked to have bowled first.

ESPNCricinfo shared brief notes from ICC committee meetings, which stated: “There is serious concern about the current level of home team interference in Test pitch preparation, and more than one committee member believes that the toss should be automatically awarded to the visiting team in each match, although there are some others on the committee who do not share that view.”

Former Australia coach Darren Lehmann had argued that the biggest threat to Test Cricket was not in fact T20s but the changing nature of what kind of pitches are held as the norm in Test matches.

He argued that ‘surfaces were far too bland’, which would produce 500 plus totals or weighed heavily in favour of home sides. Ricky Ponting said that coin tosses should not matter and focus should be on even contest between bat and ball.

On may 28, ICC will sit down for a meeting to discuss and debate the aspects of coin tosses.