How super is the Super Series?

Good administrators copy, great administrators steal. Does that make Andrew Strauss a great director, England Cricket, or merely a good one, with reference to the new-fangled Super Series, where points from games played across formats count towards the final scoreline? Since we're doling out points, he gets a few for paying tribute to the inspiration: "we've seen it done before, in women's cricket. I think it's been successful there."

Being ahead of the curve is nothing new for the women's game, which has determined to boldly go where the men's game has not - perhaps most notably in the case of the first World Cup. Forty-three years later, we may shortly see another attempt to take a successful idea from women's cricket and use it to address problems in the men's game, with news that the ICC is considering a 13-team ODI league tied to World Cup qualification.

In the case of ODIs, such a system is long overdue. While men's ODIs currently have some impact on qualification for the 50-over Champions Trophy and World Cup, through the ranking system, the fact that each country does not play the same number of ODIs in a given time frame as another makes a mockery of the situation. This was seen most acutely around the cut-off point for qualification for the 2017 Champions Trophy*: when Bangladesh's sustained upward surge pushed West Indies outside the top eight, there was much discussion of the possibility that West Indies, Zimbabwe and Pakistan would play a tri-series, leaving open the possibility of a late rankings boost. What a relief that it did not take place. A couple of poor Zimbabwe performances could have quickly prompted talk of backhanders, and had West Indies qualified, there would have been understandable backlash from the ousted Bangladesh.

By contrast, the women's game had already implemented a much more sensible arrangement. The ICC Women's Championship mandates a fixed number of internationals for each team within a set period. Extra games may be played in the series - flexibility that has useful potential for both development and commercial purposes - without those games counting towards qualification. The top half of the table will automatically qualify, while the bottom half will have to compete for the final four spots with six other teams. In concept, this is not light years away from Wally Edwards' World Cup Cricket idea, whereby ODIs would be branded as World Cup Cricket matches - in effect, explicitly marketed as qualifiers.

Where does that leave the most recent wheeze, the Super Series? At the beginning of the season, Strauss stated that the concept would "help in linking our performances in red- and white-ball cricket - committing the players in our different teams to an overall cause". It would be "a way of keeping [all formats] relevant", to "provide more context".

There's nothing particularly controversial in that statement. Although some might question whether linking red- and white-ball cricket was a worthy aim, on the whole it seems sensible to promote the formats growing together rather than in competition. Multi-format cricketers, after all, stand at the pinnacle of modern cricket. Think of the Big Four of Kane Williamson, Virat Kohli, Steve Smith and Joe Root, not to mention the outrageous talents of AB de Villiers and Chris Gayle. The development of such stunning cross-format talents should be promoted rather than discouraged.

It's too early, in fairness, to say whether the Super Series is a success - more than that, it's hard to say what a success would look like. This is where the vagueness of the stated aims becomes apparent. Is it supposed to protect Test cricket? To boost the supposedly unloved ODI format? To give one-off T20s more significance? All or none of the above? How do we know if it's working?

The lurking danger is that, as Rob Smyth so eloquently expounded in the Guardian, it risks devaluing Test cricket at the expense of the other two formats. It's fortunate that England have completed the Test leg with a merely formidable eight-point advantage, rather than an unbeatable 12-point lead. The latter would have meant that a single washed out one-dayer would have been enough to clinch the Super Series, all but eliminating the vaunted "context" for the ODI and T20s. What will be the temptation for the organisers next time around?

You don't have to look far for the answer: again, take a look back at the women's game. After England's defeat of Australia, largely on the strength of the Test victory in Perth (then valued at six points), it wasn't long before the Australian captain was proposing a review of the Test-ODI weighting - and the points for Tests were indeed reduced for the next Ashes. With the Super Series, it's plain to see how easy it would be for the next move to reduce the number of points for a Test win from four to three. It's worth remembering that women's Test cricket is in worrying condition: a mere 15 Tests have been played since 2005. It's hard to make the case that, despite its other benefits, the Super Series format is succeeding in "protecting the primacy" of Test cricket there.

Strauss' main problem is, fundamentally, that global change is not under the ECB's control: such change can only be effected by the ICC. While the stated aims, in terms of the two divisions and the ODI league, remain praiseworthy, there is only so much that he can do - hence the tinkering with the Super Series. If the ECB truly want to be, as Strauss says, "at the forefront of any particular changes to the international game to ensure that that game remains relevant for people and also grows and prospers," Strauss, Graves and Harrison should ensure that they have the right administrator representing the ECB at ICC level. That is to say, one who can be trusted - both by them and the wider public - to throw the ECB's weight behind any egalitarian ICC proposals.