WORLD TEST CHAMPIONSHIP

Until international cricket resumes, I thought of just glancing through the scenario of the world test championship.  The world test championship started in July last year with the commencement of the ashes series and is being played between the top nine ranked cricket teams in the world. Each team plays six series, with each series counting for 120 points, distributed over the number of matches in a series. Before I go ahead and explain the points distribution I thought that it would be the right time to first explain the difference between a draw and a tie in a test match.

 A match is tied in a situation where the scores of both teams are the same after completion of both their innings, completion as in either by declaration or by losing all the wickets A Draw occurs in a situation where at the end of 5 Days of play no result could be obtained between the two sides. Now coming to the distribution of points, the sum total of all matches played in a particular series should be 120.

series of (2) matches – Win/Tie/Draw – 60/30/20                                                                                                                                                                          series of (3) matches – Win/Tie/Draw – 40/20/13                                                                                                                                                                        series of (4) matches – Win/Tie/Draw – 30/15/10                                                                                                                                                              series of (5) matches – Win/Tie/Draw  – 24/12/ 8

The World Test Championship had recently witnessed a huge shift in its points table after New Zealand beat India 3:0 at home, which made NZ jump to number 3 and opened up the completion for other teams as well. Until then it was India who had kept a huge gap between themselves and the 8 other countries. I would have believed England easily jumping unto number 2 looking at there schedule but after COVID-19 it all seems bleak for a while. After a huge 3-1 win against South Africa and even-though their Sri Lanka tour was hampered they have a huge home season awaiting where they have six test matches to totally change the way the points table looks. Whereas on the other hand, Australia looks to take Bangladesh who is still looking to open their account on the table. If I was to predict what’s going to happen on the table, I would say that the competition is not between the top three but is heavily between 1, 2 and 4 and we might just see India on number 3 very soon, looking at the performance in NZ and the top 2 might just end up being England and Australia who would fight it out at the LORDS in 2021. I am attaching the points table for better understanding of the scenario, please do let me know if you feel differently.