Weekly Articles "Road to Riches" by Rich 'Tighty' Prew
The Road to Riches Week of 7th-8th July
Coming up this weekend
- Football, The Quarter Finals of the World Cup. It’s Coming Home.
- Cricket, the 3rd T20I between England and India at Bristol on Sunday
- Racing, On the flat at Beverley, Carlisle, Chelmsford City, Haydock, Leicester, Nottingham and Sandown
- Formula One, the British Grand Prix
- Tennis, the middle weekend of Wimbledon.
- Golf, on the USPGA the Greenbriar Classic and on the European Tour the Irish Open.
US Open Tennis (27th Aug - 9th Sep 2018) - by Nigel Seeley
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York Ebor Meeting (Wed 22nd Aug - Sat 25th Aug 2018) - by Neil Channing
Full write ups of every race giving details of the bets Neil is having, costing £99.99 see here
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The Old Newton Cup at Haydock by Neil Channing
Probably the best Club rugby Championship in the world.
Leinster, the defending champions, have been drawn against Wasps, Bath and Toulouse in next season’s Heineken Champions Cup. The pool contains teams who have won 11 European titles between them.
Saracens, the winners for the two previous seasons have been handed a kinder draw with Glasgow Warriors, Lyon and Cardiff Blues the current Challenge Cup champions in Pool Three.
Newcastle face a difficult task on their return to Europe’s top competition with Toulon, the three-times winners, Vern Cotter’s Montpellier and Edinburgh in Pool Five.
In Pool Two Exeter and Gloucester, another English side making a return to the competition, have been paired together along with the Top 14 champions Castres and Munster.
In Pool Four Leicester have been drawn against last season’s runners-up Racing 92 for the third straight season with the Pro14 duo Ulster and Scarlets joining them.
Last season’s competition was notable for the domination of the Irish provinces, which had it roots in the decision to centrally contract the national squad players and quickly develop academy systems a few years ago. The result, particularly in the season after a Lions tour was that the core Irish players were able to play significantly less rugby than particularly their French and English counterparts but the fruits of that academy system is now reaching first team and national level via the likes of Stockdale and Larmour.
This season of course there is no Lins tour to come back from, so players are likely o enter the competition more rested than they were. English sides though are still hamstrung by the fractious relationship between Premiership Rugby clubs and the RFU, the absence of central contracts and consequent demands on players
The French sides might be a fruitful place to look from a betting perspective this year. In reaching the final Racing92 cast of the shackles of a rather mundane Top 14 style and played vibrant attacking rugby. Last month the French side won the U20 World Cup in brilliant style and the national side showed a lot of flair in the All Blacks series. It might be a bit early to back them as a trend, but changes are afoot in French rugby, and the influx of new talent might accelerate the process by which all six Champions Cup sides are a tough “out” for the other sides, which hasn’t always been the case.
This season Newcastle’s St James’ Park hosts the final for the first time.
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The Road to Riches Weekend of 30th June - 1st July
Coming up this weekend
- Football, The first matches in the Last 16 of the World Cup.
- Racing, On the flat at Ascot, Ayr, Haydock, Lingfield, Newmarket and Redcar over the jumps at Perth.
- Formula One, the Austrian Grand Prix
- Tennis, the ATP Antalya Cup in Turkey.
- Golf, on the USPGA the National on the European Tour the French Open.
Starting Monday: Wimbledon 2018 (2nd-15th July)
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The 2018 Vitality T20 Blast
The UK Domestic T20 cricket tournament begins next Wednesday, with four teams progressing from each of the North and South Groups onto quarter finals and then finals day at Edgbaston now in mid-September.
As ever this is a competitive heat. The importance of the competition to county coffers means most invest in “name” overseas pros and in a typical English summer variance in weather and individual results is high
The head of the market is as follows:
Notts 6/1
Surrey 7/1
Hampshire 8/1
Sussex 10/1
Yorkshire 10/1
Birmingham 10/1
I have increasingly been of the opinion that what separates T20 sides in what are quite short competitions is the quality of bowling attacks. This was evident in the 2018 IPL for example when Sunrisers Hyderabad won a number of games with the best bowling attack in the competition that their batting performance gave them no right to win, and it is from that angle that I wanted to attack an ante-post selection for this competition
Sussed have recruited the prodigious teenage Afghan leg spinner Rashid Khan for this year. Since his T20 debut he has taken more wickets than anyone (165). Of the bowlers to have taken 50+ wickets in that time no one has a lower economy rate than him (5.97) & only ten bowlers have a lower strike rate than him (15.6). In the 2018 IPL for Sunrisers he took 21 wickets at 21 and a sub 20 ball strike rate. He has now taken 38 IPL wickets in two years. It’s his first appearance in this competition, and with quality lower than the IPL, he should make hay.
Sussex’s attack also features the very quick Jofra Archer who is currently qualifying for England and too 15 IPL wickets in 10 matches this year having been picked up after being one of the stars of the Big Bash League for Hobart. Add in the T20 specialist Tymal Mills and Chris Jordan too and Sussex look to have one of the best attacks going.
Meanwhile one of the best T20 blasters Luke Wright is captain at the top of the order and in the middle order Laurie Evans is one of the best young T20 batsmen. With the attack they have got, the top six just need to keep Sussex in games. In coach Jason Gillespie they have one of the game’s most innovative thinkers too.
Normally I like to look at disregarded outsiders for the T20 Blast, looking for value to offset the variance of the format and competition but this year I am taking the 10-1 Coral still offer about Sussex while it lasts.
10 points Sussex to win the 2018 Vitality T20 Blast 10/1 Coral 9/1 SkyBet
Top of the Pops
England are the number one ranked ODI side in world cricket, fresh off a 5-0 series victory over an admittedly weakened Australia side, and this is a year out from a home World Cup next summer.
This of course is a far cry from England’s ignominious performance at the last World Cup, where a group stage exit led to major changes in coaching and team selection, followed by strategy.
So what are England doing differently now compared to then?
England’s batsmen played 46% attacking strokes at that World Cup, and that figure was still under 50% in the recent ODI series but England are regarded as much more aggressive now and the difference has come in the execution. When attacking at the World Cup, England missed or edged the ball 20% of the time, with a batting average of 28. In this victorious ODI series, England only edged or missed 12% of the time and averaged 37.6 when doing so. Of course it helps that ODIs are often played on feather-bed pitches and the use of two white balls in an innings now undoubtedly assists so format changes have allied with a more successful attacking approach.
Last week Sachin Tendulkar implied that the regulation change had taken the imbalance between bat and ball too far and said “Having two new balls in one day cricket is a perfect recipe for disaster as each ball is not given the time to get old enough to reverse. We haven’t seen reverse swing, an integral part of the death overs, for a long time”
There is also undoubtedly a resilience to England’s tail-order these days, and it is combined with an ability to counter-attack. The side is now packed with all-rounders, with virtually no tail. At the World Cup, England’s last five batsmen averaged 23, scoring at 7.9 runs per over. In the 5-0 victory over Australia this rose to an average of 39 and a scoring rate of 9.8rpo.
It is a mark of how far England have come that Adil Rashid was dropped for the opening match of the 2017 Champions Trophy in July but is now the leading ODI wicket-taker since the last World Cup, and has been both a pivotal figure in the revival of the white-ball team. Wrist-spin is typically a high-risk option. At the World Cup, England’s spinners had an economy of 5.2rpo, and took a wicket every 54 deliveries. This series, the economy has lifted to 5.5rpo, but they now take a wicket every 39 deliveries.
On top of this success for the spinners, England have found something with the white-ball they’ve lacked in the Test arena, raw pace. Across their six matches at the 2015 World Cup, England’s seam bowlers sent down 188 deliveries over 140kph, a figure that has increased by nearly 50% across each series since.
Aside from the technical issues there is a new strategic flexibility to England’s ODI team, which is allowing them to win matches in different circumstances. Between the last two World Cups, in 2011 and 2015, England won 49% of games they played. Coincidentally, they also won 49% of matches when they lost the toss.
However, since the dismal World Cup campaign in 2015, England win 66% of matches they play, a significant upswing which can be partly attributed to them now winning 71% of matches when they lose the toss. That is the largest winning percentage for toss-losing teams in the world, since the last World Cup, and this adaptability is key.
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If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £40,561 All bets have an ROI +3.43%
A £4000 bank (see FAQ re bank-roll requirements) betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £44,561 a 1014% increase
(correct at 27/06/2018)
The Road to Riches Weekend of 23rd to 24th June
Coming up this weekend
- Football, The Group Stage of the World Cup continues.
- Rugby Union, Summer tour matches include third tests between South Africa v Wales, Australia v Ireland and New Zealand v France.
- Cricket, the fifth ODI between Australia and England in Manchester
- Racing, On the flat at Ascot, Ayr, Haydock, Lingfield, Newmarket and Redcar over the jumps at Perth.
- Formula One, the French Grand Prix
- Tennis, the grass court season, ATP events at Queens and Halle.
- Golf, on the USPGA the Travelers Championship at TPC Highlands and on the European Tour the BMW International in Germany.
Wimbledon 2018 (2nd-15th July)
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Cricket: England v Australia 5th ODI Manchester Sunday 24th June
England mounted their second-highest successful run-chase to secure a six-wicket victory over Australia in the fourth one-day international in Durham to take a 4-0 lead in the series with only this match at Manchester to come.
With a year to go until the World Cup in England next summer the series has highlighted England’s positions as favourites for that competition at home as the top ranked ODI side.
In terms of 300+ totals since England’s nadir at the 2015 World Cup the tale is instructive:
England 31
India 16
South Africa 15
Australia 15
New Zealand
And for 350+ totals over the same period
England 11 (400+ thrice)
South Africa 8 (400+ once)
India 4
Australia 4
Having lost this one day series Australia are becoming better equipped to win the war which will be the Ashes series next summer. Not always does the better pace attack win the Ashes in England as is invariably the case in Australia. In a side shorn of Starc, Hazlewood and Cummins through injury they have unveiled Billy Stanlake who impressed before injury in the IPL and have another fine prospect in Jhye Richardson, who touches 90 mph and is only 21.
So Australia’s pace bowling, if raw, is still sharp: It is their batting which smacks of an “A” team. This is not solely due to the bans on David Warner and Steve Smith. Australia have lost 14 and won two of their last 16 internationals spread over the last two calendar years, suggesting their ODI batting has been more affected than their Test batting by the growth of T20.
Since the last World Cup Australia average 26.17 against wrist-spin in ODIs. They lose a wicket every 30 balls, that's only the 10th best in the world.
England's spinners have now taken 18 wickets in this series, the most for England in a home ODI series since 1999. Ali has taken 8-166 at a strike rate of 19, Rashid 11-225 at a strike rate of 19
With the series won we can expect some team changes for this match but that shouldn’t affect the places of the two spinners. Ali is one of the many all-rounders that make England such a formidable batting proposition in the format and Rashid is the top wicket taker in the series.
The England bowler market for this match interesting given the performance of England’s spinners and Australia’s weakness against wrist spnners in particular and Manchester too is often a dry track.
Prices for the pair are Rashid 3/1 and Ali 5/1. Rashid is the more reliable proposition.
10 points Adil Rashid Top England bowler 5th ODI 3/1 Bet365 and Betfred
Arms Race
In less than 100 days the 2018 NFL season will be with us and teams are currently in mini-camps preparing for the month long training camps in August.
Whilst beginning to look at ante-post markets as they form its clear how much the recruitment of young quarterbacks is changing the competitive landscape amongst NFL teams, a process which is cyclical, and how the ever rising salary cap has allowed some franchises to really load up on talent.
The main beneficiaries of the salary cap rises are those teams in the fortunate position of having a potentially top quarterback on a cheap rookie deal, as this is the quickest way to be able to build a winning team.
The salary cap has been rising by nearly $10m each year since 2013, but rookie quarterbacks have remained cheap since the 2011 CBA changed the rookie pay scale. Sam Bradford, the last quarterback on the old pay scale, received a $78m deal with $50m guaranteed in 2010, while last year’s top quarterback, Mitchell Trubisky, signed a four-year, fully-guaranteed $29m deal.
Three of the past six Super Bowls were won by teams who had quarterbacks on their rookie contracts. When you have a good quarterback under a rookie contract, you can stack so much talent that your chances for competing will basically never be higher than before that young quarterback signs his second contract.
Take the Seahawks who never paid a single player more than 8% of the salary cap from 2012 to 2015, while Russell Wilson was on his rookie deal. Wilson is one of the best passers in the game, and he could lead another team to the Super Bowl even at his current salary ($23.7m against the cap), but it certainly hampers Seattle’s ability to build a talented roster around him when he’s accounting for 16% of the cap like he is this year. No team whose top two players account for more than 20% of the cap has won the Super Bowl. One of the reasons the Patriots have been able to stay at the top for so long is that Brady has played at a discount.
This off-season you see teams attempting to maximise their windows to win while they have cheap quarterbacks. The Eagles’ cap is very well-managed. Last year no player accounted for more than 6% of the salary cap. With Carson Wentz playing like an MVP while still on his rookie deal, they used that extra money to either extend or sign veterans. The 2016 preseason trade of Sam Bradford to the Vikings left huge space under the the cap which was also used to beef up the roster with veterans.
Elsewhere, the Los Angeles Rams are building an “all-star” team by trading for players, and they’re able to do so because of Jared Goff’s 199th-ranked salary-cap hit among all NFL players. (Wentz is 209th.) This is a “win now” situation because once Aaron Donald and then Goff need to be paid, they won’t have the financial flexibility elsewhere to have roster depth.
The Chicago Bears have also cottoned on to this strategy. They recruited Allen Robinson (perhaps the top wide receiver available in free agency), Taylor Gabriel and Trey Burton and drafted skill position players to complement Trubisky. There’s no guarantee all of these moves will work or that Trubisky is the quarterback to make them work, yet but there is no downside to bringing Robinson in, as Trubisky won’t count more than $10m against the cap until 2021 at the earliest. If Trubisky can play, then the Bears have begun to maximise their window. The Chiefs are another example. With 2017 first-rounder Patrick Mahomes about to take over for the traded Alex Smith, they added Sammy Watkins at a massive $48mn price tag.
The Jets have decided to spread the risk, spending $20m-$30m on three quarterbacks drafting Darnold to compete alongside the already-signed Josh McCown and Teddy Bridgewater. It’s essentially the same as paying an already-established quarterback, but you’ve tripled your chances of finding production in a given year. However, there’s a structural problem: There are simply not enough practice reps to go around. It’s the same issue the Eagles faced with backup Nick Foles, until they got to the playoffs and earned a bye week in which they effectively ran an intense mini-camp to get their back up up to speed.
As ever there are exceptions. The Dallas Cowboys are entering the third year under Dak Prescott who counts a paltry $470,000 against the cap for the next two seasons. They cannot enter the NFL arms race for roster building because for another year they still have Tony Romo’s salary hit on the books (past salary cap mismanagement meant they constantly extended Romo’s deal in his peak years to be able to roster build pushing money later into his contract, only to be left holding the bill when he retired early). Next year is their sole year to go for it, with Romo's money clear and before Dak and Zeke need to be paid at the end of their rookie deals..
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The detailed results page has been updated as have the spreadsheets with the detailed bets. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £39,710.60 All bets have an ROI +3.46%
A £4000 bank (see FAQ re bank-roll requirements) betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £43,710.60 an 993% increase
(correct at 26/04/2018)
The Road to Riches Week of 14th-18th June
Coming up this weekend
- Football, The World Cup starts on Thursday.
- Rugby Union, Summer tour matches include second tests between South Africa v Wales, Australia v Ireland and New Zealand v France.
-Cricket, the second ODI between Australia and England in Cardiff
- Racing, On the flat at Bath, Chester, Leicester, Sandown and York and over the jumps at Fontwell Park and Hexham.
- Tennis, the start of the grass court season, ATPs Ricoh Open and Stuttgart, the WTA Nottingham Open.
- Golf, on the USPGA the 117th US Open at Shinnecock Hills.
Royal Ascot (Full Package) 19th - 23rd June 2018
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US Open Golf, Shinnecock Hills, New York (starts Thursday)
The 2018 US Open heads to New York, and back to the Shinnecock Hills Golf Course, a links on Long Island that last hosted the Championship in 2004.
The US Open is renowned for being one of the hardest course set-ups of the year. The course has undergone some substantial changes since then. Most notably, the course has been lengthened by 449 yards ( just over 5%, to 7445 yards), which means this year's leaderboard might not be as peppered with shorter hitters as it was when Retief Goosen held off Phil Mickelson to win his second U.S. Open title, when players like Jeff Maggert and Fred Funk lurked.
However whilst fairways have been widened, critical landing zones have in fact been narrowed, making it difficult to get ball placement correct. Only nine players have finished under par in the last three US Opens at Shinnecock, with the median score a high +5.5 (over par) in 2004. Whilst the course should play differently, expect it to be a real examination. My search is for value amongst straight hitters.
Scouring the stats and tables for a shortlist one name began to stand out. On the USPGA this year he is 1st in Driving accuracy percentage, 1st in greens in regulation and 15th in birdies scored. Only 183rd of 300 plus in length off the tee but at 285 yards average, long enough.
This player has four top tens this year, and has finished in the top 25 in eight of his last nine tournaments. In those top 10s? 5th in the Masters, 4th in the Arnold Palmer and 2nd in the HSBC Champions. So not only is he straight as a die, his form is decent too
He is 15th in the OWGR. The icing on the potential cake? Four top tens in the Open in the last ten years, including three top threes and a win in the last seven years. Its no surprise with his type of game he’ll go well in all weather on links courses.
Have you got it yet?
I want to be backing Henrik Stenson.
Now of course there is a wide range of terms on offer. From 33/1 one quarter the odds five places to the variety of marketing offers up to ten places one fifth where you give up on the price (down to 25-1) to get the extra places. I am going to suggest a middle ground because I want some extra places without accepting 25/1 for ten places.
10 points each way Henrik Stenson US Open 35/1 Black Type (7 places 1/5) 33/1 Bet365 (8 places, 1/5) and Sportingbet (7 places 1/5) 30/1 Betfred (7 places 1/5)
Modern Times
Compared to other sports cricket has been unusual in how much it has tended to view teaselection as an art not a science. Hunches and left field selections have long been a staple of the English game. That is beginning to change with T20 cricket in the vanguard especially in the Big Bash League in Australia but increasingly in all forms of the game.
Cricket has always been heavy on statistics but used more for record-keeping than analysis. Now statistics experts are being used by teams a couple of decades on from a similar trend in baseball made famous in the “Moneyball” story.
Just taking English cricket, its long been clear that there are biases in selection often because someone plays for a particular team in a particular division, or happen to have performed on the occasion they have had a selector watching. Greater use of statistical insights may bode well for those from less glamorous counties. There is also a pressing issue to look beyond the traditional "eye tests" that selectors have adopted. One analyst found that of the 40 top-order players selected by England in Tests this century only eight improved their Division One County Championship record in Tests.
An increased emphasis on statistics is likely to lead to a far more radical change in T20 than Tests. T20 cricket is a less mature game, and in the shorter format single performances can sway games and there is a far greater randomness in results. Because there is so much more T20 played each year, and specific scenarios repeat themselves, there is a huge amount of data being collected to analyse to find angles to exploit.
Two examples of how analytics have worked are as follows. Firstly in England, Northamptonshire. Using data way ahead of the competition as a means of overcoming their competitive disadvantage (lack of finance), they reached three T20 Blast finals in four seasons from 2013-16 with a team consisting of some young talent and a lot of unheralded cast-offs fulfilling specific roles, despite having among the five smallest budgets of the 18 counties.
Secondly in Australia, the new national coach Justin Langer revolutionised the use of data at the Perth Scorchers who are the most successful BBL team, via use of analytics on not just his own team but the opposition too and selecting teams on a case by case basis as a result.
Despite England’s more aggressive and modern approach in one-day international cricket, T20 has been their worst format in the last two years; Analysts contend that England are losing in T20 partly because they aren’t picking their best team. One report last year suggested the optimal national T20 team based off county performances. Only two were in the national T20 squad at the time. There are a lot of players who play for unfashionable counties and have never been involved in England age-group pathways but who have particular skills (for example there is a seamer at Gloucester who can bowl knuckleballs to order in the death overs), suggesting that data can alert selectors to players otherwise ignored.
Using data more heavily can never eliminate selection mistakes but by finally embracing a more rounded approach and with a greater number of selectors and scouts now following up the clues at a wider range of games it could make England a more successful team.
Brodders Football Analysis
Long term profit over more than four years. Following all bets subscribers are winning £22,957.60 (£10 a point, avg bet £150) +ROI 3.46% (correct at 26/04/18)
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Bookmaker reviews and advice
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Please open an account with all those bookmakers on the page on this link that you do not already have an account with using the links provided.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated as have the spreadsheets with the detailed bets. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £39,710.60 All bets have an ROI +3.46%
A £4000 bank (see FAQ re bank-roll requirements) betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £43,710.60 an 993% increase
(correct at 26/04/2018)
The Road to Riches Weekend of 9th-10th June
Coming up this weekend
- Rugby Union, Summer tour matches include South Africa v Wales, Australia v Ireland and New Zealand v France.
- Racing, On the flat at Beverly, Catterick, Haydock, Lingfield, Musselburgh and Newmarket and over the jumps at Stratford.
- Motor Racing, the Canadian Grand Prix
- Tennis, the final weekend of the French Open.
- Golf, on the USPGA the FedEx St Jude Classic at TPC Southwind and on the European Tour the Shot Clock Masters in Austria.
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South Africa v England 1st Test Saturday 4pm BST, Johannesburg
South Africa will return to their full strength team after an underwhelming and disjointed 22-20 defeat to Wales in Washington last weekend where they looked under-cooked, not altogether surprising for the first international of the season with a scratch side that only arrived in the US 48 hours before the game.
The bigger picture is more encouraging, South Africa have picked up since the nadir of their form in 2016, won two and drew two of their six games in last season’s rugby championship and are a more formidable prospect in Johannesburg than most of their grounds.
There is a cultural change going on too under new coach Erasmus. Back come five overseas-based players to bolster the ranks (thanks to a change in selection policy finally agreed by the board)– Duane Vermeulen, Faf De Klerk and Willie le Roux who playin this Test among them – while the appointment of Siya Kolisi as South Africa’s first black captain has been met with universal approval.
South Africa are not without their injury problems (Warren Whiteley, Malcolm Marx, Lood de Jager and Eben Etzebeth in particular will be missed ) and Erasmus could probably have done without the Washington DC match but it is a strong-looking squad and the Super Rugby form of the Lions and the Bulls is engendering optimism.
It’s been a long season for England. Players came back off the Lions tour, and in many cases played up to 60 games over the domestic season (with no central contracts protecting them from over-use). They only finished 5th of 6 in the Six Nations having been warm favourites ante-post and there has been much carping since. On the field the absence of suitable back row combinations was a glaring weakness through the spring and a very disappointing lack of attacking flair with ball in hand whilst off the field there has been much criticism of Jones’ tough training schedules for players already over-worked
The effect of a poor season means the squad selected has a transitional look, not ideal 15 months before a world cup with injuries also a factor. So no Hartley, Cole and Haskell suggests a changing of the guard, Cipriani a reversal of a long held selection grudge by successive coaches and the latest import Brad Shields coming in from New Zealand plus lots of young players selected in a 34 man squad where there are no games outside the Test Matches.
There are changes in every key area of the team compared with the side which started England’s last Six Nations game against Ireland, with a few hunch selections. Yes England have some world class players in Farrell, Itoje and both Vunipola’s but strength in depth does now look an issue and the issues around creativity and the back row look no closer to being resolved.
It is eight years since anyone other than New Zealand defeated South Africa at this venue at altitude. A good Ireland team went down 2-1 two years ago. Playing here first with no meaningful hit out at altitude first is a big drawback for England.
Odds for this match are South Africa 8/13 and England 11/8. I like South Africa, and -3 on the handicap and especially (expecting an attritional match with both defences better than both attacks) I like....
10 points South Africa to win by 1-12 points at 3.0 Betfair/Matchbook, 9/5 Ladbrokes and 7/4 all with Betfred, Coral, Skybet
Championship
The ICC Cricket Committee met in Mumbai just over a week ago to discuss the playing conditions for the World Test Championship. The Championship begins after the 2019 World Cup, consisting of the nine ICC full members playing 27 bilateral series with the final is set to be played in June 2021most likely at Lords..
The potential changes are significant. For example the committee discussed whether to do away with the toss, the nature of the points system well as the quality of pitches. The ICC's chief executives' committee will take the discussion further during the annual conference in Dublin in June.
In the new playing conditions, it is at the discretion of the home board to schedule a day-night Test in a series and the touring side only has the option of veto over a second or more scheduled day-nighter. This is significant for India, who have previously vetoed playing day-night on their own tours.
The ICC's concerns about the quality of pitches and pitch doctoring in international cricket led to a discussion about ending the toss. The idea here being that a home side will not prepare a tricky batting pitch if they know there will be no toss if the away team chooses there not to be. They eventually decided "that it was an integral part of Test cricket which forms part of the narrative of the game."
Given the number of pitches ICC officials have considered to be poor over the last few years they want to introduce severe penalties for sides that create unfit pitches. If a match is abandoned and the pitch is subsequently rated as unfit by the match referee, the match will be considered to have been won by the visiting team when the competition points are allocated for that series.
With regard to the points system the ICC asked the cricket committee to recommend whether points should be allocated for both match and series results, plus the correct ratio of points for a draw relative to a win. The committee recommended draws be worth a third of the points of a win and that points should only be awarded for each match and not a series win.
The committee also discussed potential points penalties for poor behaviour by players and slow over rates. The meeting voted in favour of raising the sanctions associated with ball-tampering and having penalties for "personal, insulting, offensive or orchestrated abuse"
All the Test Championship fixtures will be played over five days and there will have to be a minimum gap of three days between Tests. As is already the case, the choice of ball to be used will remain with the host country during the league phase. For the final the ball will "likely" be the same as that used to play Tests in the country that hosts the match.
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