The finals of the inaugural edition of the World Test Championship has been postponed, ANI reports. The match, which had to played from June 10 to 14, will now start on June 18.
ANI learnt that the final match of WTC will be played at Lord’s Cricket Ground. The match has been postponed, keeping in mind the proximity between the Indian Premier League 2021 finals to the D-Day. However, the official dates of the IPL are yet to be released.
The International Cricket Council believes that given the COVID-19 condition, players might have to quarantine and then practice the reports added.
India’s series win against Australia have given Virat Kohli and company a major advantage as they are the most likely team to qualify for the WTC finals. India with 430 points after playing five series and New Zealand with 420 points and playing as many, occupy the top two spots on the points table.
On the next rung sit Tim Paine’s Australia who must win the away series versus South Africa to book a flight to Lord’s in June. India play Joe Root’s England – who saw a 2-0 series win against Sri Lanka – at home.
The altered points system for the WTC ranks teams in order of the percentage of points earned. This makes winning all the more important.
The ECB earlier in the day announced a long home summer for England starting with a Test series against World No 1 New Zealand at Lord’s (June 2-6) and then Edgbaston (June 10-14).
The Test championship is not just a project close to the ICC’s heart, even stars like Kohli have made it clear how it is an integral part of the system, and winning it would be the ultimate cherry on the cake.
“I think Test Championship, as an ICC tournament, should be right up there. All the other tournaments, for me, start under that. This is going to be the biggest of them all. Every team wants to make it to the final at Lord’s. And we are not any different. We want those points and make sure that we qualify as early as we can, and be in that frame of mind to hopefully win that,” he had said according to ANI.
