2019–2021 ICC World Test Championship

2019–2021 ICC World Test Championship

ICC World Test Championship Logo
Dates	1 August 2019 – 23 June 2021
Administrator(s)	International Cricket Council
Cricket format	Test cricket
Tournament format(s)	League and Final
Champions	New Zealand (1st title)
Runners-up	India
Participants	9
Matches	61
Most runs	Marnus Labuschagne (1675)
Most wickets	Ravichandran Ashwin (71)
Official website	icc-cricket.com/world-test-championship
2021–2023 →

The 2019–2021 ICC World Test Championship was the inaugural edition of the ICC World Test Championship of Test cricket.^[1] It started on 1 August 2019 with the first Test of the 2019 Ashes series,^[2] and finished with the Final at the Rose Bowl, Southampton in June 2021.

It came nearly a decade after the International Cricket Council (ICC) 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 featured nine of the twelve Test playing nations,^[3][4] each of whom was scheduled to play a Test series against six of the other eight teams. Each series consisted of between two and five matches, so although all teams were to play six series (three at home and three away), they were not scheduled to play the same number of Tests. Each team were 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 would contest the final.^[5] In the case of a draw or a tie in the final, the two teams playing the final would be declared joint champions.^[5] However, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted on the Championship, with several rounds of matches being postponed or cancelled. In November 2020, the ICC announced that the finalists would be decided by percentage of points earned.^[6][7]

Some of the Test series in this Championship were part of a longer ongoing series, such as the 2019 Ashes series.^[5] Also, some of these nine teams would play additional Test matches during this period which were 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.^[5] On 29 July 2019, the ICC officially launched the World Test Championship.^[8]

On 2 February 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Australia postponed their away series against South Africa, resulting in a guaranteed berth in the final for New Zealand.^[9][10] On 6 March 2021, India also confirmed their berth for the final, after beating England by 3–1 in a home Test series.^[11] The final saw New Zealand win by eight wickets, securing their second global cricket title after their 2000 ICC KnockOut Trophy win.^[12]

Format[]

The tournament was played over two years. Each team were scheduled to play six other opponents, three at home and three away. Each series consisted of between two and five Test matches. Therefore, all participants did not play the same number of Tests, but played the same number of series. At the end of the league stage the top two teams played in the final.^[13] Each match is scheduled for a duration of five days.

Point scoring[]

The ICC decided that the same number of points would be available from each series, regardless of series length, so that countries that played fewer Tests were not disadvantaged. It also decided that points would not be awarded for series results, but for match results only. These would be split equally between all the matches in the series, regardless of whether or not a match was a dead rubber,^[14] so that every match counted.^[15] In a five-match series, therefore, 20% of the points would be available each match, while in a two-match series, 50% of the points would 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 would 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.^[16] This all meant 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 happened to consist of. Ultimately, this meant 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 (360 does). Being a highly composite number, when 120 was split into all these fractions, an integer was obtained in all cases except one – the points awarded for a draw in a 3-match series should be 131⁄3 (a third of a third of 120), but the 1⁄3 had been dropped.

Each series would therefore carry a maximum of 120 points with points distributed as follows:

Distributions of points in ICC World Test Championship^[17]

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 was behind the required over rate at the end of a match would have two competition points deducted for each over it was behind.^[18] 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.^[19]

Participants[]

The nine full members of the ICC who participated were:

Since each team played only six of the eight possible opponents, the ICC announced that India and Pakistan would not play against each other in the first and second editions of the tournament.

The three full members of the ICC who did not participate:

•  Afghanistan
•  Ireland
•  Zimbabwe

These were the three lowest ranked full members of the ICC. They had been included in the ICC Future Tours Programme; they played a number of Test matches during this period against Championship participants and each other^{[n 1]} but these did not have bearing on the Championship.^{[n 2]}

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.^[20]

Rather than being a full round-robin tournament in which everyone played everyone else equally, each team played only six of the other eight.

Therefore, the total number of matches played by each team (home and away) in this tournament, and the two countries that each side did not face in this tournament, were as follows. (Note: This was not the total Test matches played by each team during this period, as some countries did play further matches during this period which were not part of this Championship, as part of the ICC Future Tours Programme for 2018–23. Some of these may be against the opponents they did not play in this Championship.)

Team	Scheduled matches			Was not scheduled to play against
	Total	Home	Away
Australia	19	9	10	Sri Lanka and  West Indies
Bangladesh	12	6	6	England and  South Africa
England	21	11	10	Bangladesh and  New Zealand
India	17	9	8	Pakistan and  Sri Lanka
New Zealand	13	6	7	England and  South Africa
Pakistan	13	6	7	India and  West Indies
South Africa	16	9	7	Bangladesh and  New Zealand
Sri Lanka	12	6	6	Australia and  India
West Indies	13	6	7	Australia and  Pakistan

All the series were mutually agreed between the two nations involved;^[20] this had led to allegations that the schedule has been agreed based on what would provide the biggest television audiences, and therefore television receipts,^[21] rather than selecting an even spread of teams.

Since each team played a different set of opponents, they can be considered as having an easier or harder schedules.

COVID-19 pandemic[]

The COVID-19 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.^[22] Later the same month, the two-match series between Sri Lanka and England was also postponed.^[23] The following month saw Australia's tour to Bangladesh and the West Indies tour to England being postponed.^[24][25] 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.^[26][27] South Africa's tour of the West Indies was postponed, after the fixtures clashed with the West Indies rescheduled tour to England.^[28][29]

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.^[30] The ICC ultimately accepted several series would not take place as part of the Championship and changed the points system to account for the variation in the number of series played per team.^[6][7]

Prize money[]

The International Cricket Council declared a total prize money pool of US$3.8 million for the tournament. The prize money was allocated according to the performance of the team as follows:^[31]

Position	Prize money (US$)
Winner	$1,600,000
Runner-up	$800,000
Third	$450,000
Fourth	$350,000
Fifth	$200,000
Sixth	$100,000
Seventh	$100,000
Eighth	$100,000
Ninth	$100,000
Total	$3,800,000

The winning team also got the ICC Test Championship Mace, previously presented to the top team in ICC Men's Test Team Rankings at the April cutoff-date of a year between 2003 to 2019.

League stage[]

League table[]

Pos	Team	Series				Matches					PC	Points	Ded	PCT	RpW Ratio
		P	W	L	D	P	W	L	D	T
1	India	6	5	1	0	17	12	4	1	0	720	520	0	72.2%	1.577
2	New Zealand	5	3	1	1	11	7	4	0	0	600	420	0	70.0%	1.281
3	Australia	4	2	1	1	14	8	4	2	0	480	332	4[a]	69.2%	1.392
4	England	6	4	1	1	21	11	7	3	0	720	442	0	61.4%	1.120
5	South Africa	5	2	3	0	13	5	8	0	0	600	264	6[b]	44.0%	0.787
6	Pakistan	5.5	3	3	0	12	4	5	3	0	660	286	0	43.3%	0.822
7	Sri Lanka	6	1	3	2	12	2	6	4	0	720	200	0	27.8%	0.729
8	West Indies	6	1	4	1	13	3	8	2	0	720	194	6[c]	26.9%	0.661
9	Bangladesh	3.5	0	4	0	7	0	6	1	0	420	20	0	4.8%	0.601
Last updated: 22 June 2021. Source: International Cricket Council,[34] ESPNcricinfo[35]

• The top two teams advanced to the final.
• Teams were ranked by PCT. If two teams were tied on PCT, then they were ranked by Runs Per Wicket Ratio. If teams were still tied, ranking was determined by matches won in series between the teams, finally by ranking in the Men's Test Team Rankings as at 30 April 2021.^[36]
• Under the original rules, teams were ranked first by points. If two teams were tied on points, the team that won more series was ranked higher. If teams were still equal, the runs per wicket ratio was used.^[37] This ranking system was amended in November 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic causing some series to be cancelled, meaning not all teams would compete for the same number of points.^[7]
•   Team qualified for final

2019[]

The Ashes (England v Australia)[]

Sri Lanka v New Zealand[]

West Indies v India[]

2019–20[]

Freedom Trophy (India v South Africa)[]

Ganguly–Durjoy Trophy (India v Bangladesh)[]

Australia v Pakistan[]

Pakistan v Sri Lanka[]

Trans-Tasman Trophy (Australia v New Zealand)[]

Basil D'Oliveira Trophy (South Africa v England)[]

Pakistan v Bangladesh[]

The second match was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[22] Due to a busy schedule, the match would be postponed until the 2021–22 season and outside the Championship season.^[38]

New Zealand v India[]

2020[]

Bangladesh v Australia[]

This series did not happen due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wisden Trophy (England v West Indies)[]

This series was originally scheduled for June 2020 but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[39]

England v Pakistan[]

Bangladesh v New Zealand[]

This series did not happen due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

2020–21[]

New Zealand v West Indies[]

Border–Gavaskar Trophy (Australia v India)[]

New Zealand v Pakistan[]

South Africa v Sri Lanka[]

Sri Lanka v England[]

This series was originally scheduled for March 2020 but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[40]

Pakistan v South Africa[]

Bangladesh v West Indies[]

This was originally a three-match series scheduled for January 2021.

Anthony de Mello Trophy (India v England)[]

This was originally a five-match series.^[41]

South Africa v Australia[]

This series did not take place as originally scheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and could not be a part of the Championship season.^[42]

Sobers–Tissera Trophy (West Indies v Sri Lanka)[]

Sri Lanka v Bangladesh[]

This series originally comprised three Test matches and was scheduled for July–August 2020, then postponed to October 2020, but was rescheduled again due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

2021[]

Sir Vivian Richards Trophy (West Indies v South Africa)[]

This series was scheduled to be played in July 2020 but postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Final[]

Final standings[]

Pos.	Team	Prize money (US$)
1	New Zealand	$1,600,000
2	India	$800,000
3	Australia	$450,000
4	England	$350,000
5	South Africa	$200,000
6	Pakistan	$100,000
7	Sri Lanka
8	West Indies
9	Bangladesh

Statistics[]

Individual statistics[]

The top 5 players in each category are listed.

Most runs[]

Batsman	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	Ave	HS	100s	50s
Marnus Labuschagne	13	23	0	1675	72.82	215	5	9
Joe Root	20	37	2	1660	47.43	228	3	8
Steve Smith	13	22	1	1341	63.85	211	4	7
Ben Stokes	17	32	3	1334	46.00	176	4	6
Ajinkya Rahane	18	30	3	1159	42.92	115	3	6
Last updated : 23 June 2021[43]

Most wickets[]

Bowler	Mat	Inns	Wkts	Runs	Overs	BBI	BBM	Avg	5WI	10WM
Ravichandran Ashwin	14	26	71	1444	549.4	7/145	9/207	20.33	4	0
Pat Cummins	14	28	70	1472	555.3	5/28	7/69	21.02	1	0
Stuart Broad	17	32	69	1386	499.3	6/31	10/67	20.08	2	1
Tim Southee	11	22	56	1166	431.3	5/32	9/110	20.82	3	0
Nathan Lyon	14	27	56	1757	630.5	6/49	10/118	31.37	4	1
Last updated: 23 June 2021[44]

Highest individual score[]

Batsman	Runs	Balls	4s	6s	Opposition	Ground	Match date
David Warner	335*	418	39	1	Pakistan	Adelaide	29 November 2019
Zak Crawley	267	393	34	1	Pakistan	Southampton	21 August 2020
Virat Kohli	254*	336	33	2	South Africa	Pune	10 October 2019
Kane Williamson	251	412	34	2	West Indies	Hamilton	3 December 2020
Dimuth Karunaratne	244	437	26	0	Bangladesh	Pallekele	21 April 2021
Last updated: 25 April 2021[45]

Best bowling figures in an innings[]

Bowler	Wkts	Runs	Overs	Mdns	Econ	Opposition	Ground	Match date
Lasith Embuldeniya	7	137	42.0	6	3.26	England	Galle	22 January 2021
Ravichandran Ashwin	7	145	46.2	11	3.12	South Africa	Visakhapatnam	2 October 2019
Jasprit Bumrah	6	27	12.1	3	2.21	West Indies	Sabina Park	30 August 2019
Stuart Broad	6	31	14.0	4	2.21	West Indies	Old Trafford	24 July 2020
Axar Patel	6	38	21.4	6	1.75	England	Ahmedabad	24 February 2021
Last updated: 24 February 2021[46]

Best bowling figures in a match[]

Bowler	Wkts	Runs	Overs	Mdns	Opposition	Ground	Match date
Axar Patel	11	70	36.4	9	England	Ahmedabad	25 February 2021
Kyle Jamieson	11	117	41	14	Pakistan	Christchurch	3 January 2021
Praveen Jayawickrama	11	178	64	17	Bangladesh	Kandy	29 April 2021
Stuart Broad	10	67	22.1	5	West Indies	Old Trafford	24 July 2020
Hasan Ali	10	114	31.4	4	South Africa	Rawalpindi	4 February 2021
Last updated: 3 May 2021[47]

Best batting averages[]

Batsman	Matches	Innings	Runs	Average	HS	100s	50s
Marnus Labuschagne	13	23	1675	72.82	215	5	9
Babar Azam	10	17	932	66.57	143	4	5
Steve Smith	13	22	1341	63.85	211	4	6
Kane Williamson	10	16	918	61.20	251	3	2
Rohit Sharma	12	19	1094	60.77	212	4	2
Qualification: Minimum 10 innings. Last updated: 23 June 2021[48]

Best bowling averages[]

Bowler	Matches	Wkts	Runs	Balls	Average	BBI	BBM
Kyle Jamieson	7	43	539	1,478	12.53	6/48	11/117
Ishant Sharma	12	39	694	1,496	17.79	5/22	9/78
James Anderson	12	39	761	1,991	19.51	6/40	7/63
Stuart Broad	17	69	1,386	2,997	20.08	6/31	10/67
Ravichandran Ashwin	14	71	1,444	3,298	20.33	7/145	9/207
Qualification: Minimum 1000 deliveries bowled Last updated: 23 June 2021[49]

Team statistics[]

Highest team totals[]

Team	Score	Overs	RR	Inns	Opposition	Venue	Date
New Zealand	659/6d	158.5	4.14	2	Pakistan	Christchurch	3 January 2021
Sri Lanka	648/8d	179	3.62	2	Bangladesh	Pallekele	21 April 2021
South Africa	621	142.1	4.36	2	Sri Lanka	Centurion	26 December 2020
India	601/5d	156.3	3.84	1	South Africa	Pune	10 October 2019
Australia	589/3d	127.0	4.63	1	Pakistan	Adelaide	29 November 2019
(d=declared) Last Update: 25 April 2021[50]

Lowest team totals[]

Team	Score	Overs	RR	Inns	Opposition	Venue	Date
India	36	21.2	1.68	3	Australia	Adelaide	19 December 2020
England	67	27.5	2.40	2	Australia	Headingley	22 August 2019
England	81	30.4	2.64	3	India	Ahmedabad	25 February 2021
West Indies	97	40.5	2.37	1	South Africa	Gros Islet	10 June 2021
West Indies	100	26.5	3.72	4	India	North Sound	22 August 2019
Last Update: 10 June 2021[51]

Highest successful run-chases[]

Team	Score	Target	Overs	RR	Opposition	Venue	Date
West Indies	395/7	395	127.3	3.10	Bangladesh	Chattogram	7 February 2021
England	362/9	359	125.4	2.88	Australia	Headingley	25 August 2019
India	329/7	328	97.0	3.39	Australia	The Gabba	19 January 2021
England	277/7	277	82.1	3.37	Pakistan	Old Trafford	8 August 2020
Sri Lanka	268/4	268	86.1	3.11	New Zealand	Galle	18 August 2019
Last Update: 7 February 2021[52]

See also[]

• Test cricket
• ICC Test Championship
• ICC Men's Test Team Rankings
• 2020–23 ICC Cricket World Cup Super League

Notes[]

References[]

External links[]

• Official website
• Tournament home on ESPNcricinfo