“Only the second outright Test champion in the 32 years since the competition began.”*

*Disclaimer: Highly unlikely the World Test Championship lasts that long.

Hmm. I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one. Anything less frequent will be more valuable for its rarity, but that has to be weighed against the value of the losses. I personally don’t think the rain-afflicted draw raises the value of the overall experience through making wins rarer more than it lowers the value through happening.

No, because good weather doesn’t make Test wins easier to come by. It’s merely the absence of an additional hurdle.

But doesn’t the fact that a win was only allowed for by the random whims of the Weather Gods detract from wins being special in a similar manner?

Well, there was no day limit to begin with, and there was also no covering of pitches, which made them a lot more difficult to bat on, so draws were less of an issue.

The weather-assisted draw is of course the least-satisfying result in its own right. Our point is that even taking that into account, they still enhance subsequent wins by making them rarer.

It’s certainly not something to strive for, but that’s still how it works.

Long story short: more grounds with roofs please.

The draw in men’s Test cricket is a marvellous thing. The fight for the draw is one of the greatest aspects of any sport: scraping there, nine down, against the odds… It’s glorious. Meanwhile the fact that a win requires you not just to bat better, but bowl well enough to get the opposition out, does indeed make it feel worth more than the equivalent in other sports.

This is not the case when you add rain into the equation, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s outside everyone’s control. I do not find a woefully inadequate opposition being saved by rain or bad light rewarding, even when it’s my own team (apart from in 2005, obviously), because the opposition didn’t earn that. Secondly, just like limited overs cricket tries to manufacture the glory of the Test chase and in doing so loses it, so bad weather manufactures the glory of holding on for the draw by shortening the match. So publishing this when the dominant factor in the most recent two Test draws (assuming the WTC final goes that way) will have been rain doesn’t sit right with me.

Then there’s women’s Tests, which happen so rarely and draw so often that the draw doesn’t feel like a marvellous thing, and any weather-related draw feels even more unjust.