WTC format and structure: There’s a lot for the ICC to ponder moving forward

The final of the ICC World Test Championship will be played from June 7-11 at the The Oval, London between Australia and India.

Nine teams compete in a two-year cycle where no two teams play the same number of Test matches in a single year. None of the nine teams play the same number of matches in a series against one opponent. Not all matches played in one series count for points accumulated.

The format of the World Test Championship (WTC), leading up to the final – a game that has great potential to be created into cricket’s finest red-ball property – is as complicated as it can get at the moment.

Ask any cricket statistician to explain how exactly does the WTC point system work and chances are there would be no exact detailing of the process.

So, on the eve of the WTC final between India and Australia, a question was posed to Rahul Dravid (not in verbatim): “What kind of relevance does he see in the WTC format, with regards to all teams (nine) that are participating?”

That was followed up with another question (again, not verbatim): “With different teams playing different number of matches, how does it all match up?”

Here’s what Dravid said: “It's so just my own experience over the last couple of years and I've been part of this cycle, it's probably somewhere at the back of your mind when you start the cycle. It starts becoming front and centre when you get to the pointy end. So when you get to the last few games of a series and then you can see the conversations around, okay, what do we need to be able to qualify? Where are the other teams? So probably in the first couple of scenes that you need to win those, you need to get there.

“But I think it still seems like it's a little bit far away and you still need to react to what's in front of you and not so much worry about what's happening elsewhere. But I think when it gets to the back end of the last couple of series, you certainly start looking around and looking at the point system and start seeing what you need to do to definitely qualify or at least give yourself a chance to qualify.”

Clearly, Dravid too is not quite sure how exactly is the WTC functioning at the moment, except the fact that any format having a conclusive final adds relevance to the competition.

And that is precisely why the idea of a WTC final has carried its share of charm so far.

However, to ponder a bit more on this, does the idea of merely a one-off game determining the winner at a neutral venue justify the end? You play for two years to reach the final and then in one game, in conditions that are alien to both sides, the final gets decided.

Some former greats, including Sachin Tendulkar, aren’t convinced with this. They’d rather have a home-and-away concept for the final too, a Best-of-Three perhaps instead of a one-off. Former India coach Ravi Shastri has pursued this line of thought too.

On the eve of what will be the second WTC final, there’s clearly enough on the plate for the game’s patrons to think about. How they go about bringing in greater clarity will pave the way for Test cricket to get more relevant moving into the future.