Cricket Australia CEO’s 12-team World Test Championship proposal has found few takers among member boards. Greenberg said, "I think that's what will happen for the next two years." However, financial realities make expansion unlikely. Most boards struggle with costs, and the ICC has not received any formal structural change proposals.
Asked if the proposed 12-team WTC restructuring would become reality, Greenberg told reporters in Durban: "I think that's what will happen for the next two years.”
Talks are on over the next Future Tours Programme (2028-31) and the ICC has refused to react to Greenberg’s comments.
But those in the know see Greenberg’s comments as “misguided”.
Little has changed from August when HT reported that the 12-team WTC expansion proposal had garnered little support. Changes to the WTC would need to be raised by the men’s cricket committee to be discussed in the ICC board meeting in November where the FTP may be announced. “No proposal for a structural change in WTC has been put across and it is unlikely that there will be one,” said an ICC board member.
“For the next (WTC) iteration, I can understand why it is that number (12 teams) because they want to give every Test nation the opportunity,” Greenberg has said.
Greenberg’s comments are at odds with financial realities. Producing and selling Test cricket at home has become increasingly unviable for most ICC member boards apart from India, England and Australia. The big three will continue to engage in reciprocal five-Test series among themselves in the next FTP.
If the WTC expanded to 12 teams with Zimbabwe, Ireland and Afghanistan added to the mix, provisions would have to be made for a one-off Test series to be weighted in percentage terms for finals’ qualifications. Because those nations wouldn’t be able to bear the costs of a longer series. Only Cricket Zimbabwe are known to be supportive of the idea.
Even the relatively stronger boards of South Africa and New Zealand are heavily reliant on an inbound tour from India to cover costs. A lot is expected of the South Africa-Australia Test series starting Friday to make a pitch for more such marquee series.
West Indies’s standards have dropped so drastically that for Cricket West Indies, even the tour of India has not brought enough cheer. They have announced a 25% pay cut for the players in anticipation of lower broadcast projections from next year’s India tour.
“This fiscal year (2026), we had Sri Lanka, Pakistan and New Zealand. From a revenue perspective, that's like death, destruction and Armageddon because there's just no money coming out of those markets for your TV broadcast,” CWI CEO Chris Dehring told Cricinfo. “But you still have to spend millions to produce because of contractual obligations and requirements like DRS, Hawkeye and everything else that you have to deliver. But you are not going to get any revenues out of those three markets to even cover TV production costs.”
As things stand, the new FTP may not be drastically different from the existing one apart from bilateral ODI series being largely shunned from the calendar other than in the lead-up to ICC ODI events.