The summer of 2005 without Pietersen? Imagining World Test finals of the past

The Guardian

28-05-2025

This, dear reader, is the 1,126th edition of The Spin. For the past 23 years it has been a weekly source of news, views and automated data about the unread message count in the deleted items folder. As such it is hard to find new journalistic frontiers. But, in the face of some molten competition, this week's Spin stands alone as the nerdiest, the most anal, the one grounded furthest from reality.
We say this not to boast, only to flag that it may not be for everyone, and that we feel for those unfortunates whose neurological disposition means they have precisely no interest in imagining what a World Test Championship final might have looked like in May 1989.
Yep, with South Africa facing Australia in an actual World Test Championship decider next month, we've calculated what the finals would have been had a forward-thinking International Cricket Council introduced the concept in the 20th century. We stuck as closely as possible to the current regulations, which means one-off Tests don't count, each cycle begins with the first Test of an English summer and teams need to reach a certain level of performance before they join the imaginary points table.
In the Editor's Notes for this year's Wisden Almanack, Lawrence Booth – AKA Original Spin – described the WTC as 'a shambles masquerading as a showpiece'. If you're reading, Lawrence, we hope you'll agree there's no masquerade here.
We went back as far as 1973-75, primarily for two reasons. In our head that's where modern cricket begins, with Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson trying to knock St George off his 'orse in 1974-75. And 50 years of counterfactuals feels like quite enough for now.
Many of the findings (!) are as you'd expect. West Indies would have been in every final from 1979 to 1993, Australia from 1997 to 2009. (We'll get to 1995.) England would have made only three: 1979, AKA the Packer Years, 2005 and 2011. And they would have finished bottom twice: not in 1999, when they were unofficially the worst team in the world, but 1981 (back-to-back series against West Indies will do that to you) and 1989. In that cycle England played 18 Tests, winning only one, and even that wouldn't have counted as it was a one-off against Sri Lanka.
The 2005 final would have been played at the start of that mind-altering summer, probably without Kevin Pietersen as it was before the astonishing innings at Bristol that made the selectors forget everything they thought they knew. Whatever the result, a WTC final would have subtly altered the context of the epochal Ashes series that followed.
Australia became unofficial world champions a decade earlier when they ended West Indies' 15-year unbeaten run in an even more epochal series. Yet the WTC final that year – the same month, in fact, because the series ended at the start of May – would have been between Pakistan and India. The reason was one of the WTC's biggest problems, an unequal schedule. India played only three series, two against a relatively weak Sri Lanka, and three of Pakistan's five series were against Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe.
West Indies v Australia would have been the final in the two cycles prior to 1995, with the 1991 final taking place almost immediately after an extremely fractious series in the Caribbean that West Indies won 2-1. Imaginary popcorn please!
It's no surprise that Australia are the most dominant team overall; they would have appeared in 15 finals from 1975-2025. No other side has reached double figures. The West Indies team of 1983-85, whose cycle included a 3-0 win in India, a 5-0 in England and a 6-1 aggregate evisceration of Australia, are the only team whose percentage of available points (75) was more than double any of the other teams.
West Indies' opponents in their decade of dominance would have been India (1981), New Zealand (1987) and Pakistan (1983, 1985, 1989). Imran Khan's side have a strong case for being the most underrated team in cricket history. Their win percentage is too low for them to be among the very best – in the 1987-89 cycle, for example, they drew 11 out of 16 – but they lost only two Test series in an eight-year period and consistently matched the West Indies at a time when most other teams were being smashed to smithereens. The three 1-1 draws played between 1986 and 1990 are the subject of the best cricket book never written.
Pakistan's final against West Indies in 1989 is the one that stirred the most excitement in our inner child. A year on from an epic draw in the Caribbean, 18 months before another in Pakistan, except this time a draw wasn't on the table. We spent an hour working out what the teams would have been, specifically whether Pakistan's last pick would have been Shahid Saeed, Ijaz Ahmed, Mudassar Nazar, Saleem Jaffar or Naved Anjum, and what the implications were for the role of utility man Aamer Malik.
In the end we went for Mudassar, with a Test debut (only a few months ahead of real life) for the 17-year-old sensation Waqar Younis. The West Indies team picked itself, with an emerging Ian Bishop completing a frightening pace attack.
West Indies Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Richie Richardson, Keith Arthurton, Viv Richards (c), Gus Logie, Jeff Dujon (wk), Malcolm Marshall, Curtly Ambrose, Ian Bishop, Courtney Walsh.
Pakistan Mudassar Nazar, Ramiz Raja, Shoaib Mohammad, Javed Miandad, Salim Malik, Imran Khan (c), Aamer Malik, Saleem Yousuf (wk), Wasim Akram, Abdul Qadir, Waqar Younis.
We stopped short of replaying the game in the garden, at least for now. For those of us on the cricket spectrum, the real fun is in recalling and researching the state of each team and each player when the matches would have been played. Each final becomes a snapshot of a moment in time – in their lives and ours.
In the unlikely event that you'd like to see the full list of finals, or the probable XIs for some of the games, email The Spin.
The selection of cricket teams needs a new metaphor. The trusty analogy of cabs off the rank, patiently waiting in line for their turn, doesn't reflect a time in which players miss international matches for myriad reasons: franchise leagues, workload management, paternity leave. While this isn't completely new – Sir Ian Botham missed half of England's New Zealand tour in 1991-92 to star in Jack and the Beanstalk at the Bournemouth Pavilion – the idea of a first XI, carved in stone, has never been more distant.
These days selection is more of a multi-lane free-for-all: horns blaring, passersby shouting which cab you should get in and why. And there has been a helluva lot of noise in the past week. When England start their Test series against India, Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope and Jacob Bethell will be competing for two places in the top three. A week ago Bethell felt nailed on to play, even if it meant he'd have to open for the first time in his first-class career. But rightly or wrongly, it feels like Crawley and Pope have overtaken him with their centuries against Zimbabwe.
Bethell spent the Zimbabwe Test watching on from the sidelines at Royal Challengers Bengaluru. That's not a criticism – for a young batter, two months in a dressing room with Virat Kohli is about as powerful as osmosis gets – but it may be that, in the short term, one bit of bench-warming begets another.
The palaver over Ben Stokes's pre-match comments, interpreted as confirmation that Bethell would start against India, may also work in Pope's favour. While the Bazball brains trust can be deceptively ruthless, The Spin's instinct is that most of that comes from Brendon McCullum and Rob Key, and that Stokes – though single-minded – drops long-serving players with a heavier heart. You can't be a miracle of empathy such as Stokes and turn into Michael Corleone when needed.
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While it feels unlikely that Crawley or Pope will miss the start of the series against India, scoring a century doesn't always guarantee selection for the next Test. Ken Barrington and Geoff Boycott were both dropped for slow scoring in the 1960s. And in consecutive years at the start of the 1980s, the New South Wales batter Dirk Wellham was left out immediately after scoring his maiden centuries in both first-class and Test cricket. It wasn't the outrage it seems: Wellham had been covering for Doug Walters and Greg Chappell respectively, so when they were available he returned to the head of the cab rank. The Spin has been smitten with Bethell since his mythical 10 on Test debut at Christchurch, but even we wouldn't put him in their company. Yet.
I walk into this England team and I feel 10ft tall. I'm well backed in county cricket as well, but I feel like England cricket is my happy place – After months of wicketless misery, Shoaib Bashir returned to form with nine wickets in England's win over Zimbabwe.
When the Australian legspinner Arthur Mailey gave advice to England's Ian Peebles during the 1930 Ashes tour, he was criticised for helping the opposition by the Australian team manager, William Kelly. 'Spin bowling is an art, Mr Kelly,' said Mailey, 'and art is international.'
Wrist-spin and wicketkeeping are among cricket's greatest arts. At the end of the 1990-91 Ashes – the 'fart competing with thunder' series that Australia won 3-0 – Jack Russell and Ian Healy found a quiet corner of a dressing room to talk about their art. Both were less than three years into their Test careers but would become recognised as two of the world's best keepers throughout the 1990s – in Russell's case even when he couldn't get in the England side.
In the third Test at Sydney, Russell – standing up to the seamer Gladstone Small – dismissed Dean Jones with a remarkable legside stumping. At this stage most of Healy's work was done standing back to the seamers, but within a year he would keep to Shane Warne for the first time. Their partnership was career-defining for Healy, who enhanced Warne's greatness with his soft-handed brilliance – and occasionally his mouth.
In 2015, they reunited for a delightful masterclass on Sky Sports, another reminder that, in cricket, art will always be international.
Roland Butcher, Barbados-born England batter of the 1980s, talks to Simon Burnton about being jettisoned as a West Indies selector, the risks of their new cricket structure and his thwarted football dreams.
Sir Jimmy Anderson got out of bed in instalments after his return to action with Lancashire. But, as he tells Andy Bull, he can't wait to do it again.
Nottinghamshire lead Division One of the County Championship going into the mid-season break. Gary Naylor reviews another cracking round of fixtures.
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