ICC Confirms New Point System, Details For Next World Test Championship

The International Cricket Council (ICC) had already informed that the five-match Test series between India and England will be played under the next cycle of the ICC World Test Championship. Now the ICC has also confirmed how the points system will be in the second season of the ICC World Test Championship (WTC), as questions were raised on the points system of the first season.

The International Cricket Council has confirmed the points system for the second edition of the World Test Championship (WTC) as well as the bilateral series that will be part of the 2021-23 cycle starting next month. Each match of the upcoming WTC will now compete for equal points. 12 points for winning a Test match, four points for a drawn match and 6 points for a tie will be awarded to both the teams.

ICC Acting Chief Executive Geoff Allardice said the changes had been made to simplify the points system while taking learnings from the disruption last year: 

“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.

“During the pandemic we had to change to ranking 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.”

In the 2019-21 season of the WTC, the points system was the same for each series. Whether it was a series of two matches or five matches, 120 points were fixed in all the series, but due to the corona virus epidemic in the middle of the season, it was changed and the ICC prepared the points table according to the win percentage. Based on this, the final of the World Test Championship was played between India and New Zealand, which was won by the Kiwi team.