The Unofficial Cricket World Championship is a side project of The Baggy Green blog. It’s a pretty simple idea. Basically, the history of the first test cricket match is traced back (in this case, Australia vs. England in Melbourne on March 15th 1877), and the winner (Australia) is crowned the first Unofficial Cricket World Champion. From there, like boxing, each time the champion plays they defend their title. If the match is won or drawn they keep their title, but if they lose a new champion is crowned.

Here is the list of the Unofficial Cricket World Champions since it’s inception in 1877, all the way to the present time.

The strangest thing about the long form of the game is that there no recognised championship like the shorter forms. Depending on where you’re from, different tests mean different things. As an Australian, the pinnacle is always The Ashes – the oldest and most intense rivalry in cricket. The Ashes mean everything to the English and Australian players but there have been stages where the gulf between the two teams have been too great to be the peak of the sport. In recent years, with the dominance of South Africa and India, beating these teams, especially in their own back yards has been more lucrative than lifting the tiny urn. The ICC rankings determine who the team to beat is at any given time but these rankings are often arbitrary and generally pointless other than a nice pat on the back.

The rise of T20 cricket has threatened the white shirt version of the game because of the instant action it provides, but also the circular nature of test match series means there really isn’t a current champion. That’s really the point of the Unofficial Cricket World Championship – to give a defined test cricket champion. The great thing about it is that any team can be the champion with the win of a test. So even Bangladesh and Zimbabwe don’t have to win a whole test series to claim the title. I hope that this can give the smaller nations and those following at home a champion to root for in test match cricket. Long live the long form of the game.