Lanka to host WI, Australia, Pakistan in WTC 2nd edition

Sri Lanka are due to host West Indies, Australia and Pakistan in the second edition of the World Test Championships fixtures released by the International Cricket Council yesterday.

Sri Lanka will also play Bangladesh, New Zealand and India away in the six series (3 home, 3 away) tournament. Each of the nine teams are scheduled to play before the cut-off date 31 March 2023.

The first edition of the World Test Championship was won by New Zealand who defeated India in the final played at Southampton by eight wickets.

Sri Lanka finished 6th in the first edition of the WTC played between 2019-2021 with 2 wins, 6 losses and 4 draws from 12 matches.

The ICC 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, standardised 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.”