ICC World Test Championship

Season:

2025-2028

The ICC World Test Championship is a league competition for Test cricket run by the International Cricket Council (ICC), which started on 1 August 2019. It is intended to be the premier championship for Test cricket. It is in line with the ICC's goal of having one pinnacle tournament for each of the three formats of international cricket. The original plans to hold the competition in 2013, replacing the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy, were abandoned. It was rescheduled for June 2017, with a second Test championship to take place in India in Feb-March 2021. The top four ranked teams on 31 December 2016 – the cut-off date set by the ICC – would play the three-match Test championship. There would have been two semi-finals and the winners play the final. However, in January 2014 the ICC World Test Championship was cancelled and the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy was reinstated. In October 2017, the ICC announced that a Test league had been agreed by its members, which would involve the top nine teams playing series over two years with the top two teams qualifying for a World Test League Championship Final which will be considered as an ICC event. The league games of WTC were not considered as ICC event and the broadcasting rights were with the host nation’s cricketing board itself and not with ICC. But unlike the league stage matches the WTC finals was considered to be an ICC event. The first ICC World Test Championship started with the 2019 Ashes series, and finished with New Zealand lifting the trophy after defeating India in the final in June 2021. The second ICC World Test Championship was started on 4 August 2021 with the 5-match Pataudi Trophy.