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ON the 25th anniversary of Zimbabwe joining a small elite band of countries in the world deemed good enough to play Test cricket, the ultimate format of this game which to many represents the sport’s soul, the International Cricket Council have added that exclusive membership with two other nations.

The ICC voted overwhelmingly this week to grant Afghanistan and Ireland into the Test cricket family, granting the two nations full Membership status and bringing the number of Test-playing countries in the world to 12.

It’s the first time that the Test-playing membership has been increased since Bangladesh were granted Test status in 2000 and only the second time, in the past 25 years, that the ICC have decided to add to that membership.

Australia and England are the founder members of that club after they played the first Test match in Melbourne in 1877 while India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, the West Indies, South Africa and Bangladesh are the other members.

Zimbabwe and South Africa are the only two African nations who have Test cricket status in the world.

Both Ireland and Afghanistan have shown remarkable improvement, in their game, in recent years to justify their inclusion in the exclusive club of Test-playing countries.

We welcome them on board and this is significant for Zimbabwe cricket because the pool is now bigger and this means our Chevrons, who have struggled to get Test matches, now have more chances of plunging into action and playing in this five-day format of the game.

The Chevrons, who are currently on a European tour that has seen them play in Scotland and the Netherlands, are set to play a Test match against Sri Lanka next month, but as coach Heath Streak has repeatedly said, his men badly need more Test matches for them to keep improving as a team.

“If you look at the gaps that we had after that tri-series we had two and half months of no cricket and then we played Afghanistan and then again we had another two and half months before we play in Sri Lanka,’’ Streak told this newspaper recently.

“So it’s important for us to get some sort of games as preparation going into that Sri Lankan series.’’

The coach argues that it’s not just a coincidence that the Chevrons were at their strongest, in international cricket, when they were playing a lot of matches and points to 2001 when Zimbabwe played seven Test series, four triangular tournaments and four ODI series as they engaged each and every one of the ICC Full Members.

Full membership of the ICC also comes with huge financial rewards and powerhouse India will receive almost a quarter of the total cash which will be handed by the ICC for the cricket cycle 2016 to 2023.

The Indians, who generate the majority of the funding, will get $405m, England will receive $139m, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, New Zealand and West Indies receive $128m each while Zimbabwe will receive $94m.

Ireland and Afghanistan will see their funding rise significantly, now that they are full members of the ICC, but the two countries will receive far less funds when compared to Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe Cricket has been battling under a weight of financial challenges and the increased funding from the ICC is likely to help them in a big way, including servicing their huge debt and also taking care of the development structures to ensure that there is a steady stream of good players being produced to fly our national flag.

We badly need to transform our national cricket team into a side that can compete against the best in the world, justifying why we belong to the elite club of Test nations, and it’s incumbent upon the Zimbabwe Cricket authorities to ensure that they get their priorities right.

It’s no use being the richest sporting discipline in the country when the results on the pitch do not justify such a lofty status and our challenge, to those who are in charge of this game, is for them to ensure that the funding they are getting from the ICC gets into the priority areas and not spent on things that don’t help our game.

We are happy that there appears to be a determination, among the game’s leaders, to ensure that the players spend as much time as possible playing the game because that is the only way they can get better and better, in terms of their performance levels.

Their decision to send the Chevrons to play tricky matches against Scotland, which ended in a draw, and the Netherlands, a series we won with a game to play today, after we failed to qualify for the ICC Champions Trophy, is the right move in terms of player development.

Cricket is a huge part of our sporting culture and we want to see our Chevrons shining again on the big stage.