It came from the former West Indies captain Clive Lloyd, speaking in Alice Springs in his latest role as manager of the team in Australia. He was reacting to the Australian Cricket Board's marketing of the Test series, beginning in Brisbane on Friday week as 'The Decider' with the accompanying assertion that the winners will be unofficial world champions.
``Why unofficial?'' Lloyd asked. ``We're not playing unofficial Tests. Tests are official, so something should be set up where you play for the championship of the world. You have it in the one-dayers; why not in the Test matches?
``Test cricket is the thing. It's what you are known for. Nobody's known for doing anything in the one-day scene. Test cricket is the ultimate and we must make it interesting, so that people know exactly what's going on.''
Lloyd added that he favoured official sanctioning of a programme of Tests by the ICC, ensuring that every one of the nine Test countries would play the others in a given number of years. ``We have to have a better system of working out who's playing who and how often,'' he said.
For two reasons his view deserves to be taken very seriously: firstly because there are an increasing number of very short Test series or 'one-off' Tests; secondly because of the proliferation of international cricket generally.
There is the danger that the five-day Test, with all the rigours, shifts and fascinations of two-innings cricket played by cricketers of high skill at full mental and physical stretch, will become subordinate to the meretricious allure of the limited-overs international.
The idea of giving points for each Test to determine world champions was expounded in the 1995 Wisden almanack by the editor, Matthew Engel, who recently expanded his views in the November issue of Wisden Cricket Monthly magazine, arguing that Test cricket is in disarray while one-day internationals are played before packed houses.
This winter 33 Tests will have been played in eight countries and 12 different series, all linked to one of the bewildering array of one-day games. Well before the current batch of games in Sharjah that unlikely centre of cricket (a place where the indigenous population barely play the game) became the first venue to stage more than 100 internationals. The ICC officially are cautious about attempts to bring some semblance of order.
``Market forces will decide; that's the reality of the commercial world,'' said David Richards, chief executive of the International Cricket Council, in reaction to Lloyd's comments. ``I'm not an advocate of ICC controlling the international programme.
``If one country ignores another, we'll take a hand, as we did when we encouraged the West Indies to tour Sri lanka for the first time recently, but the game has to remain contemporary. It is certainly an idea which we should devote attention to and we'll be monitoring the international programme through our new committee of chief executives.''
Richards, just back from the meeting of international referees, who discussed mutual problems and a more uniform application of the code of conduct last week in Bombay, conceded that he would be concerned if the top players become so over-taxed that they end up merely going through the motions.
He cited as an example the programme for India, who are following their recent Test and one-day triangular series at home with visits to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Bermuda and the West Indies.
At home there will be a further step today on the road to the completed England and Wales Cricket Board. The new TCCB chairman, Sir Ian MacLaurin, will oversee a special meeting of the Board at Lord's to determine the constitution of the First Class Forum, a matter which was deferred when the Board agreed in principle to start the new ECB next Jan 1.
World Cricketers: A Biographical Dictionary by Christopher Martin-Jenkins (OUP) is available for 25 (post-free UK) from Telegraph Books Direct, Deanshanger, Milton Keynes, MK19 6HD. Or phone 01908 566366.