Aussies mauled in Galle as Sri Lanka claim series win

The recent crowning of Australia as the premier team of world cricket's elite format said everything about why the five-day game struggles for context and a place in the public consciousness.

Steve Smith was a fully deserving recipient of the ICC's gilded mace as top-ranked Test team for the year-long qualifying period (ending April 1) having won a pair of home series as well as away successes in the Caribbean and New Zealand.

And the $US1 million ($A1.3m) cheque that accompanies the bejewelled, stylised cricket stump might have partly eased the anguish of a failed Ashes campaign in that same period.

However, the presentation of Test cricket's equivalent of the Wimbledon trophy, the US Masters green jacket or even the Super Bowl was held not amid an orgy of selfie-triggered phone flashes and cascades of tickertape but on a secluded swathe of lawn at a (limited) invite-only event.

Held at a five-star hotel on the outskirts of the Sri Lankan hill country centre of Kandy.

Steve Smith with the ICC Test mace // Getty

The reason cited for the moment not being at least shifted to the nearby Pallekele Stadium about to stage the first Test between the freshly minted champions and seventh-ranked Sri Lanka was that the home Board deemed the sight of the prize in their opponents' hands would deflate the local players.

Whether next week's presentation of the Warne-Muralidaran Trophy for the Test series winners will be held in similarly clandestine circumstances for fear of affronting the vanquished tourists has yet to be established.

How Australia claimed the No.1 ranking in February

What is transparent is that the top-ranked team will tumble to as low as third barely four months into the new qualification period should England and India both close out their current series against Pakistan and the West Indies respectively.

But there are still those who claim a less arbitrary, more structured format for deciding a true Test champion when all competing nations have been afforded the chance to complete a full suite of home and away fixtures would make for a more meaningful title.

Quick Single: How Australia can stay No.1

Especially when you consider that during the 12-month qualification window that closed on April 1, Australia finished just two points ahead of India yet played almost twice as many Test matches (15 as opposed to India's eight) during that time.

Third-ranked South Africa played 10, and they were followed in the year-end rankings by Pakistan (8 Tests), England (17), New Zealand (9), Sri Lanka (10), West Indies (10), Bangladesh (5) and Zimbabwe (0).

That order would change if – as has been suggested under some models for a formalised world Test championship – teams were recognised for achieving what is increasingly considered the toughest task in the modern game.

Winning Test matches (and even the occasional series) away from home.

Australia celebrate series win in New Zealand // Getty

Perhaps by being awarded double points for victories in 'away' series (which would include counting Pakistan's games played in the UAE as 'home' fixtures for them) in much the same way that away goals count double in major international football tournaments staged across multiple nations.

With the number of losses at home being used as a tie-breaker should any teams find themselves on equal points.

So working on a simple points formula – two points for a home victory, four points for an away victory, one for a draw at home and two for a draw on the road – here's how the April 1 Test champions ladder would have looked for the 2015-16 qualification period.

Not vastly different, with Australia a clear winner with 34 points, boosted by their six away wins in the Carribbean, England and NZ which was double the next-best away team effort, by Pakistan.

Pakistan savour famous win at Lord's

Followed by England (24), Pakistan (19), India (17), New Zealand (10), South Africa (9), Sri Lanka (8), the West Indies (5), Bangladesh (4) and Zimbabwe with as many points as they've played Tests.

But proposals for a mandated ICC Test championship have largely endorsed a points table compiled over a four-year cycle which, under the existing future tours program covers the period in which all nations notionally complete bilateral home and away fixtures.

With a minimum of two Test matches in each series, except in the case of Zimbabwe which remains a Test nation in no-man's land, where New Zealand are currently bolstering their quota of away victories.

So if the nominal April 1 date chosen by the ICC remains the start and end point for the past four-year qualification period, the standings using the 'double points' system to reward the teams that are competitive away as well as dominant at home would be as follows:

Australia (47 Tests, 80 points) England (50 Tests, 72 points) South Africa (34 Tests, 61 points) India (33 Tests, 50 points) New Zealand (37 Tests, 47 points) Sri Lanka (34 Tests, 40 points) Pakistan (28 Tests, 39 points) West Indies (35 Tests, 34 points) Bangladesh (20 Tests, 19 points) Zimbabwe (10 Tests, 4 points)

Despite evidence tendered over the past fortnight in Sri Lanka, it is Australia's capacity to consistently win Test matches away from home shores – 10 wins from 26 offshore attempts – that would see them ordained as the Test championship holder.

If the table was re-arranged purely to reflect away performances, then the top three places would remain unchanged although India's three away wins over four years (two in Sri Lanka and one at Lord's) would see them slump to sixth behind New Zealand (five away wins) and Pakistan (four).

Of course, the notion of a Test championship remains distant as the 10 Test-playing nations continue to weigh up the cases for and against the introduction of a two-tier Test system to allow more flexibility in scheduling and the introduction of additional countries into the Test-playing roster.

But should it ever come to fruition, expect the handover of the quadrennial prize to at least take place in a public space.

Maybe even one bearing some relationship to cricket.