Test Championship mace presented in private

If the cricket’s Test Championship mace is presented to the world’s No. 1 team at a private function, is there any point presenting it at all?

In a stark indication of the game’s convoluted and context-less international schedule, Australia’s captain Steven Smith was handed the mace by the ICC’s chief executive David Richardson in a “closed event” at the Earl’s Regency Hotel in Kandy, with no access to the public or the media. Next to the presentation of the football and rugby World Cups, or even cricket’s own global events in ODIs and Twenty20s, this was a ceremony that bordered on the farcical.

ESPNcricinfo understands the privacy was the result of a last-minute request by Sri Lanka Cricket to keep the event low key, so as not to deflate their players before the looming Test series between the two nations, due to begin at Pallekele on Tuesday. So late was the decision reached that the ICC had already hired an MC for a public event, but he was instead left as a bystander to the hushed handover.

“David Richardson is in Kandy for the presentation of the mace to Australia, which finished as the No.1 ranked Test side at the 1 April cut-off date,” an ICC spokesman said. “As this is a sponsor-related activity and unrelated to the forthcoming series, the ICC, in conjunction with the Members/teams, decided to keep this presentation as a closed event.”

Australia had effectively claimed top spot as far back as February with a 2-0 series win in New Zealand, something formalised when the ICC rankings had their “annual adjustment” on April 1. But the mace …

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