The league system is good but wouldn't that rob the game of David v goliath contests where the minnows upset the favourites? Ireland came close to upsetting england at lords, West indies routinely does well against england particularly in West indies (and also occasionally defeats them in England) despite being a much weaker team in rankings - maybe the first league should be just the top 3 and then the next league the next 5/6 and then the rest - and the occasional game between the top of the 3rd tier and some of the 2nd tier etc
Ultimately the problem with rankings and tiers based on rankings is that the performance of a test team is so conditions based that rankings go out the window, we almost need conditions-based ranking and/or home/away based rankings
The league system is good but wouldn't that rob the game of David v goliath contests where the minnows upset the favourites? Ireland came close to upsetting england at lords, West indies routinely does well against england particularly in West indies (and also occasionally defeats them in England) despite being a much weaker team in rankings - maybe the first league should be just the top 3 and then the next league the next 5/6 and then the rest - and the occasional game between the top of the 3rd tier and some of the 2nd tier etc
Ultimately the problem with rankings and tiers based on rankings is that the performance of a test team is so conditions based that rankings go out the window, we almost need conditions-based ranking and/or home/away based rankings