The International Cricket Council has announced the new points system and schedule of the World Test Championship 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.
In the first cycle of WTC, each series had a maximum of 120 points and thus the teams which were playing the five-match Test series were at a disadvantage as compared to teams that were playing the two-match Test series.
“We received feedback that the previous points system needed to be simplified,” ICC Acting Chief Executive Geoff Allardice said. “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.”
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.
