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The ICC World Test Championship is a premier Test Cricket Championship run by the International Cricket Council (ICC).
It is a league tournament of test cricket that will be played over a span of two years, The 2019-21 World Test Championship will be the first edition of the ICC World test Championship.
World Test Championship Format
The ICC World Test Championship will be played over a span of two years. Every team will play against six other opponents three at home and three away.
Each series can consist of about a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 5 test matches, hence the matches played by each team will not be the same but the series played by each team will remain the same.
At the end of the league stage, the top two teams will play the final match for the championship.
World Test Championship Points Distribution
Since each team will not play the same number of matches it was decided that the same number of points would be available for each series to counterbalance the situation between teams playing more number of matches and a team playing less number of matches.
The points distribution will be on the result of each match and not on the result of the series.
In a 5 match series, 20% of the points of the series will be available for each match and in a 2 match series, 50% of the points of the series would be available for each match.
So depending upon the length of the series ie 1,2,3,4 or 5 matches, the number of points awarded would be a half, one third, a quarter, or one-fifth of the maximum possible points from the series.
A match resulting in a tie will be considered worth half of a win and a match resulting in a draw will be considered one-third of a win.
Each series would carry a maximum of 120 points and the points distribution is as follows.
| Matches in series | Points for a win | Points for a tie | Points for a draw | Points for a defeat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 60 | 30 | 20 | 0 |
| 3 | 40 | 20 | 13 | 0 |
| 4 | 30 | 15 | 10 | 0 |
| 5 | 24 | 12 | 08 | 0 |
In addition to this a team that will be behind the required over rate at the end of a match would face a deduction of points depending on the overs it was behind.
ICC World Test Championship History
The test championship was first proposed in 2009, In 2010 ICC approved the idea of a test championship and the first tournament was meant to replace the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy in England and Wales.
The format of the tournament was announced, the inaugural edition of the test championship was to be held in England and Wales in 213. It would comprise an inaugural league stage played over a period of four years with all the ten test cricket-playing nations participating in it. After the league stage, the top four teams will take part in the playoffs with the finals deciding the test champion.
However, due to the financial problems within the board, and its commitment to the sponsors and broadcasters in 2011 ICC announced that the test championship would not take place until 2017.
The 2013 ICC Championship trophy which was meant to be replaced by the canceled tournament was held with the hosting rights to England and Wales the original hosts of the canceled tournament.
In April 2012, ICC confirmed that the 2013 Champions Trophy would be the last champions trophy and the inaugural test championship playoffs being scheduled for June 2017.
ICC said that there would be only one trophy for each format of the game, which meant that the ICC Champions Trophy would no longer be held as the Cricket World Cup is the premier event of 50 over cricket.
However, in January 2014 the 2017 ICC World Test Championship was canceled and the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy was reinstated.
2019-21 Inaugural Edition
The first match of the inaugural test championship was played from 1 August 2019 with the first test of the 2019 Ashes series and will finish with finals at The Lords in England in June 2021.
It became possible nearly after a decade with the two canceled attempts in 2013 and 2017.
Effect of Covid-19
The Covid-19 Pandemic had a huge impact on the inaugural season of the World Test Championship as several series and matches being either postponed or canceled.
In November 2020, the ICC announced that the finalist would be decided by the percentage of points earned.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Australia postponed their away series against South Africa on 2 February 2021, Due to this New Zealand became the first team to qualify for the finals of the inaugural test championship.
Teams playing Test Championship 2019-21
- Australia.
- Bangladesh.
- England.
- India.
- New Zealand.
- Pakistan.
- South Africa.
- Sri Lanka.
- West Indies.
Final Match
The Final of the first edition of the World Test Championship was be held from 18-23 June at the Ageas Bowl in Southampton. It was a contest between New Zealand vs India in which rain interrupted the play on many occasions. New Zealand won the match comfortably with 8 wickets and was crowned as the winner of the inaugural ICC World Test Championship. New Zealand was awarded a cash prize of 1.6 million USD (11,90,06,880 INR) and India was awarded a prize of 800,000 USD (5,95,03,440 INR).