As a kid, I have recollections of Rain saving us in the Ashes, and rarely feeling hard done by that rain cost us a certain victory, so I will happily wear the accusation of hypocritical whinging pom or whatever, but this is not a post of sour grapes.
There is a solution for future Ashes - and this is not like the solution isn't staring us in the face here - the reserve day that was implemented for the Test Final.
The Test final has its own context that its a culmination of a huge series of cricket in a single event (point of failure), but the Ashes are Crickets equivalent of the Olympics or Lions Tour. And, frankly, if we can do it for the Ashes, we can likely do it for them all, no (sorting out the Ashes first tho pls
) As a Sport wishing to have the most marketable 'product' and maintaining the fundamental desire for the result to be decided on sporting merit, and not fluke, weather, cheating or bad decisions (and that's before we accept that the whole game starts with a coin toss that gives one side a 20% or something advantage...) (or that its sport dependant on English Summer weather (and sometimes Aus tests suffer also) so the risk of sporting tragedy that we have witnessed today are not exactly benign), surely this should be something the ICC look into? If for no other reason than think of the seat revenue.
Some thinking to do around a minimum Overs lost - say half a day - as you want to have a strong bias for finishing the game on the original planned evening, but that's not exactly rocket science.
I shouldn't admit this here, but Ashes Cricket has a whole different meaning/interest for me. I'd almost compare it to England football tournaments (watch every second of every match) vs non-tournament games (qualifiers, friendlies) (haven't seen one in 30 odd years). It's an icon, and too important for the old amateurish refusal to modernise (especially since they can do allsorts to game formats if they want to).
Including a moratorium to replay the reserve day - effectively backdating the new structure - for any rain affected matches from, say 2020 onwards, I think would be fair
I also don't know why other rivalries effective
let themselves get second tier status by shitty 2 or 3 test series at sporadic intervals. How are we supposed to hate our opposition if we only have 2 matches to build up the animosity
- and we can never close the series with the follow up date for the revenge mission?! Give the marketing men a bone here! All nations should have an 'Ashes' or 'Gavaskar Border trophy' where the events become their own tales of memorable sporting legend.