A progress report on proposals to sharpen interest in the game at Test level will be considered by a two-day meeting of the International Cricket Council's executive board, beginning in Christchurch tomorrow. More concrete plans for the championship will be put before the council's summer meeting at Lord's, in June.

Lord MacLaurin, chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, said after a recent meeting with his Australian counterpart, Denis Rogers: ``Australia and ourselves are clear that nothing will change our five-Test series.''

The ECB, according to their chief executive, Tim Lamb, see the prospective world championship ``as a means of giving Test cricket a greater focus in countries which have not marketed it as well as it should be and of keeping it as the pinnacle of the game''.

Some countries are less enthusiastic about the project than others and there are also differing views on the form it should take. The idea, in essence, is to have each country playing the other eight at least twice - on a home-and-away basis - during a time frame of four or five years, with each series comprising at least three Tests.

However, there is expected to be an alternate proposal, mooted by ICC president Jagmohan Dalmiya, that the championship be run as a separate event in one country, lasting about two months.

Another important item on the agenda is ``ICC's stance on match-fixing and betting''. The council have been urged to assume powers to penalise offenders and to set up a commission of inquiry.

David Richards, the ICC chief executive, said: ``The allegations and innuendoes are a cancer within the game and it needs to be brought to a conclusion. It's a worldwide issue but the image of the game is a precious commodity which is a key reason why action ought to be supported.''

Dalmiya, who will miss the meeting because of a family bereavement, sounded a cautionary note. ``We have to avoid the situation where if any player plays a rash stroke he's in the dock,'' he said. ``It's better not to nab the culprits than hurt an innocent even 20 per cent.''

A case of breach of the council's code of conduct also figures on the agenda this weekend. The offender is not an indiscreet player, but an Australian umpire, Darrell Hair, whose autobiography is alleged to contain inflammatory material about his no-balling of the Sri Lanka off-spinner, Muttiah Muralitharan.

Hair called Muralitharan seven times for throwing in a Test against Australia in 1995. He wrote in the book: ``I could have called him 27 times or more but I did not want the matter to become a complete farce.''