The International Cricket Council has announced the new points system and schedule of the World Test Championship 2021-23 or WTC 2021-23 cycle. Each team will be awarded 12 points for a win, six for a tie, four for a draw and zero for a loss. A win will give a team 100 per cent of points whereas 50 will be awarded for a tie and 33.3 percentage of points will be given for a draw.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) has announced the fixtures of the second cycle of the World Test Championship that begins with the 5-match Test series between India and England from August 04. The apex body has also announced the points system based on which the league standings of the teams will be decided.
The ICC was criticised in the last cycle after it decided to change the points system in the middle of the tournament as some of the matches couldn’t get completed due to disruption caused by Covid-19. With the virus threat still not over, ICC decided to revamp its points system to better suit the current situation across the world.
ICC WTC 2021-23 Points System:
As per the format issued by ICC, teams will be awarded a total of 12 points for each match they win in this cycle, six for a tie, four for a draw and zero for a loss. The points allocated per series will vary depending upon the number of matches in the series.
Matches in Series and Points:
- 2 Matches – 24
- 3 Matches – 36
- 4 Matches – 48
- 5 Matches – 60
The teams, however, will be ranked on the basis of the percentage of points won and not the overall tally.
“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.”
Nine Test teams will battle it out for the Test mace as each team will play six series each during the two-year period. The first series of WTC 2021-23 will be the five-match series between England and India. The cut-off dates for all series will be 31st March 2023.
ICC has also released the schedule of every team in the WTC.
