ICC announces major change in the second edition of World Test Championship

The schedule and the points format for the second edition of World Test Championship was released by the International Cricket Council (ICC) on Wednesday with the points format being changed compared to the previous edition.  According to the ICC press release, the bilateral series will be part of the 2021-23 cycle commencing next month. New Zealand will be the defending WTC champions after beating India in the finals of the inaugural edition played last month.

ICC announces changes in points format for World Test Championship

According to the release, the points format for the second WTC will witness teams being given 12 points for a win, four for a draw and six for a tie. The new points format will be different from the previous system where the same number of points were allocated to each series, divided across the number of matches played. Coming to the points available per series, the two match series will have 24 points at stake, while the three match series will have 36 points at stake. The best of four Test matches will have 48 points at stake, while the best of five match series will see teams having a chance to get 60 points.  

ICC Acting Chief Executive Geoff Allardice while speaking about the new points format said, "We received feedback that the previous points system needed to be simplified. The Cricket Committee took this into consideration when proposing a new, standardized points system for each match. It maintained the principle of ensuring that all matches in a WTC series count towards a team’s standing, while accommodating series varying in length between two Tests and five Tests".

He further said that during the pandemic, "We had to rank teams on the points table using the percentage of available points won by each team, since all series could not be completed. This helped us determine the finalists and we were able to complete the championship within the scheduled time frame. This method also allowed us to compare the relative performance of teams at any time, regardless of how many matches they had played."

Nine teams gear up for second WTC championship

While there will be a change in the WTC points format to make it more exciting, no changes have been made to the format of the competition. Just like the first edition, the second edition will also feature nine teams with all of them playing six series each: three home and three away.

The second WTC championship will kick off with the Test series between England and India next month with the cut-off date for the matches being March 31, 2023. Day-night matches can be included in a series by participating teams but four-day Test matches won't be a part of the championship. Teams will lose one championship point for every over they are found short.

Image: AP