Former Australia spinner Brad Hogg has called for a four-match Test series between arch-rivals, India and Pakistan, while stating that the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has ‘opened the door for the ultimate cricket rebirth’.     

Hogg, who featured in 123 One-Day internationals, 15 Twenty20 Internationals (T20Is) and 7 Test matches over the course of his career, wants the ICC World Test Championship to be scrapped, for the time being, in favour of the Ashes and Indo-Pak series.  

“The pandemic has opened the door for the ultimate cricket rebirth. Viewers have been starved and they want to see some competitive cricket, so scarp the World Test Championship for a while and get a couple of series that are really going to ignite the interest in cricket around the world,” said Hogg on his official YouTube channel.

The 49-year-old also added that the matches will be divided equally between the two countries.

“Firstly scrap this summer’s India against Australia five-match series and have the Ashes played instead,” he said. “But where does that leave India? They will play Pakistan in a four-match Test series, with two matches in India and other two in Pakistan, over the Christmas period. We have not seen it for a while and the public are starving for it.”

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The former left-arm wrist spinner was also looking forward to three fascinating on-field battles during the series.

“There are many reasons for it. Firstly, [Virat] Kohli and Babar Azam, who is the best out of those two? Well that will be proven in this series,” he said.

“Then you have got [Jasprit] Bumrah against [Shaheen Shah] Afridi, which means quality bowling attack and then the spinners, Ravichandran [Ashwin] versus [Yasir] Shah and it’s all in Asian conditions. Brilliant stuff, let’s have it!” he concluded.