Names and numbers for Ashes Tests

The upcoming Ashes series will see England and Australia players adorn jerseys with surnames and numbers on the back – a first in 142 years of Test cricket -- while the series is also going to be the first played under the banner of the World Test Championship.

According to cricket.com.au, Cricket Australia's operations department is understood to be well in the planning phase to produce numbered Test shirts for this winter's Ashes squad.

While numbers and surnames on the back have become a norm in one-day international (ODI) matches, but Test cricket has always been in plain white shirts.

The ICC is keen to market Test cricket, with the chairman of ICC during a recent visit to Bangladesh saying that the ‘format is dying’. A recent poll by MCC showed that 86 percent of the respondents still considered Test cricket their favourite format. However, the introduction of the Test championship could induce meaning and context to bilateral series.