2019–21 ICC World Test Championship
The 2019–21 ICC World Test Championship is the inaugural edition of the ICC World Test Championship of Test cricket. It started from 1 August 2019 with the first Test of the 2019 Ashes series, and will finish with a final at Lord's in England in June 2021.
It comes nearly a decade after the International Cricket Council first approved the idea for a World Test Championship in 2010, and following two cancelled attempts to hold the inaugural competition in 2013 and 2017.
It features nine of the twelve Test playing nations, each of whom will play a Test series against six of the other eight teams. Each series consists of between two and five matches, so although all teams will play six series, they will not play the same number of Tests. Each team will be able to score a maximum of 120 points from each series and the two teams with the most points at the end of the league stage will contest the final. In the case of a draw or a tie in the final, the two teams playing the final will be declared joint champions.
Some of the Test series in this Championship are part of a longer ongoing series, such as the 2019 Ashes series. Also, some of these nine teams will play additional Test matches during this period which are not part of this Championship, as part of the ICC Future Tours Programme for 2018–23, mainly to give games to the three Test playing sides not taking part in this competition. On 29 July 2019, the ICC officially launched the World Test Championship.
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted on the Championship, with several rounds of matches being postponed. In April 2020, following a Chief Executives' meeting, the ICC announced that it would look at the future of the scheduling at a later date, once there is a better understanding of the impact of the pandemic on cricket.
Format
The tournament will be played over two years. Each team will play six other opponents, three at home and three away. Each series will consist of between two and five Test matches. Therefore all participants will not play the same number of Tests, but will play the same number of series. At the end of the league stage the top two teams will play a final in England in June 2021. Each match will be scheduled for a duration of five days.Point scoring
The ICC decided that the same number of points will be available from each series, regardless of series length, so that countries that play fewer Tests are not disadvantaged. It also decided that points will not be awarded for series results, but for match results only. These will be split equally between all the matches in the series, regardless of whether or not a match is a dead rubber. In a five-match series, therefore, 20% of the points will be available each match, while in a two-match series, 50% of the points will be available each match.Therefore, depending on whether the series is 2, 3, 4 or 5 matches long, the number of points awarded for a single match win will be a half, a third, a quarter, or a fifth of the maximum possible from the series. The ICC also decided that a tie should be worth half of a win and that a draw should be worth a third of a win. This all means that after each match, a side could be awarded a half, a third, a quarter, a fifth, a sixth, an eighth, a ninth, a tenth, a twelfth or a fifteenth of the total points available from the series, depending on the result and how many matches the series happens to consist of. Ultimately, this means a figure for the total points available from the series needs to be picked very carefully, as not many numbers give all integers when split into all these different fractions. Being a highly composite number, when 120 is split into all these fractions, an integer is obtained in all cases except one - the points awarded for a draw in a 3-match series should be 13, but the has been dropped.
Each series will therefore carry a maximum of 120 points with points distributed as follows.
| Matches in series | Points for a win | Points for a tie | Points for a draw | Points for a defeat |
| 2 | 60 | 30 | 20 | 0 |
| 3 | 40 | 20 | 13 | 0 |
| 4 | 30 | 15 | 10 | 0 |
| 5 | 24 | 12 | 8 | 0 |
A team that is behind the required over-rate at the end of a match will have two competition points deducted for each over it is behind. In January 2020, South Africa became the first team to be docked World Test Championship points, after a slow over-rate in the fourth Test against England.
Participants
The nine full members of the ICC who will participate are:The three full members of the ICC who will not participate are:
Schedule
The schedule for the World Test Championship was announced by the ICC on 20 June 2018, as part of the 2018–2023 Future Tours Programme.Therefore the total number of matches played by each team in this tournament, and the two countries that each side will not face in this tournament, are as follows.
| Team | Total matches | Home matches | Away matches | Will not play against |
| 19 | 9 | 10 | and | |
| 14 | 7 | 7 | and | |
| 22 | 11 | 11 | and | |
| 18 | 10 | 8 | and | |
| 14 | 7 | 7 | and | |
| 13 | 6 | 7 | and | |
| 16 | 9 | 7 | and | |
| 13 | 7 | 6 | and | |
| 15 | 6 | 9 | and |
Variations in strength of opponents
Rather than being a full round-robin tournament in which everyone plays everyone else equally, each team plays only six of the other eight. Each team plays a different set of opponents, and so can be considered as having an easier or harder schedule. For example, New Zealand do not play England and South Africa, two of the highest-ranked teams, whereas Australia do not play Sri Lanka and West Indies, two of the lowest ranked teams. Also, while there is a balance with all teams playing three series at home and three series away, this is not the case with the individual matches. For example, India play ten Tests at home and eight away, whereas the West Indies play just six at home and eight away.Four of the highest-ranked nations all play each other, in some of the longest series of the Championship, and the teams these four nations do not play are generally lower-ranked nations.
All the series are mutually agreed between the two nations involved; this has led to allegations that the schedule has been agreed based on what will provide the biggest television audiences, and therefore television receipts, rather than selecting an even spread of teams.
Coronavirus pandemic
The coronavirus pandemic impacted on international cricket fixtures, including matches in the Championship. In March 2020, the second Test match between Pakistan and Bangladesh was postponed due to the pandemic. Later the same month, the two-match series between Sri Lanka and England was also postponed. The following month saw Australia's tour to Bangladesh and the West Indies tour to England being postponed. In June 2020, the two-match series between Bangladesh and New Zealand and the three-match series between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh were both postponed. South Africa's tour of the West Indies was postponed, after the fixtures clashed with the West Indies rescheduled tour to England.On 20 July 2020, the ICC announced that both the 2020 and 2021 editions of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup had each been postponed by one year due to the pandemic. On 29 July 2020, the ICC confirmed that their attention had moved to the fixtures in the World Test Championship, with their priority on rescheduling the six Test series that had been postponed.
League stage
League table
- Top two teams advance to the final to be played at Lord's, London on 10–14 June 2021.
- If two teams are tied on points, the team that won more series shall be ranked higher. If teams are still equal, then the team with the higher runs per wicket ratio shall be ranked higher. The runs per wicket ratio is calculated as runs scored per wicket lost, divided by, runs conceded per wicket taken.
2019