Dubai: The International Cricket Council has confirmed the points system for the second edition of the ICC World Test Championship (WTC) as well as the bilateral series that will be part of the 2021-23 cycle commencing next month.
Each match of the upcoming WTC will now be contested for the same number of points – 12 for a win, four for a draw and six for a tie, moving away from the previous system where the same number of points were allocated to each series, divided across the number of matches played.
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.”
WTC 2 Fixtures: As in the first edition of the championship, the nine teams will play six series each, three home and three away with the cut-off date being 31 March 2023.
Meanwhile, New Zealand captain Kane Williamson, India captain Virat Kohli and England captain Joe Root looked forward to doing their best in the second edition of the ICC World Test Championship, which commences with the England-India series in Nottingham on 4 August.
