Cricket: England vs India to kick off the second WTC cycle, with tweaked points system

Subsequent to overpowering endorsement for the World Test Championship as an idea notwithstanding a pandemic-defaced debut version and a downpour hit last, the 2021-23 cycle will start with India's five-Test series in England beginning August 4. The dates and venue for the 2023 WTC final are yet to be declared.

The International Cricket Council has made a striking change to every Test, and not the series, which will mean WTC points. Cricket board of the nine participating teams however boards are allowed to organize Tests outside the WTC cycle.

The ICC team rankings will proceed as an estimating device to pick the teams for the WTC cycle.

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Top Three to play most Tests

The current framework doesn't assist with measuring home and away successes independently, or address unequal dissemination of Tests. As indicated by Future Tours Program subtleties accessible, England, India, and Australia will again play the most Tests, almost 50% of them among themselves. Aside from the series in England, India will play three Tests in South Africa and two in Bangladesh while their facilitating Australia, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka are affirmed.

Points System

An aggregate of 120 points were distributed to every series in the debut WTC cycle, 60 points per Test for a two-match series and 24 points for success in a five-Test series. Presently, every Test win, paying little heed to the length of the series, will get 12 points. Teams will get six points each for a tie and four points each for a draw.

On a basic level, the change accepts the percentage of points won method, a change in the framework that produced results from last November after numerous series were dropped because of the pandemic.

“We are going to stick with the percentage-of-points-won method to rank teams,” ICC acting CEO Geoff Allardice was quoted as saying on ICC’s website. “If we are using the percentage, we can put a standardized number of points per Test. So, it doesn’t matter if it is a two-Test series or a five-Test series, the same number of points will be available for each matchevery team would be judged on the percentage of those points it wins, not on the total.”

"Instead of each series being worth the same number of points, 120, irrespective of whether the series is played over two Tests or five Tests, the next cycle will see each match being worth the same number of points - a maximum of 12 per match. Teams will be ranked on the percentage of available points they won from the matches they have played. The aim was to try and simplify the points system and to allow teams to be meaningfully compared on the table at any point, though they may have played differing numbers of matches and series."

Last year, a late move to embrace the percentage of points framework pushed table clinchers India to No. 2, in spite of having the most successes, and they needed to scramble to book a compartment in the final, which they lost to New Zealand.

New Zealand were better positioned and dominated the two-match home series against West Indies and Pakistan to enter the final. Australia pulled out of their South Africa visit referring to the pandemic.