New Delhi: The race for the World Test Championship intensifies as three simultaneous tests—South Africa vs. Sri Lanka, New Zealand vs. England, and India vs. Australia—are underway. Earlier, the Sri Lankan team was defeated by the South African team, while the Kiwis suffered a shocking defeat at home.
Meanwhile, the India team won the first match of the Border Gavaskar Trophy. This has left the door open for South Africa, India and Australia as firm favourites for the WTC Finals ticket.
So, let us see how can the different teams qualify for the World Test Championship.
South Africa
The Proteas are still the favourites to reach the WTC Final if they win the remaining 3 matches which they will play at home against Sri Lanka and Pakistan. South Africa are through to the final with a PCT of 69.3%.
India
New Zealand’s loss to England means that they cannot get to 64.3. The maximum they can achieve is 57.1% and to cross that, 2 wins from the remaining 4 matches are enough for them to see NZ off. But if India wins and loses 2 matches each – they get to 58.8%.
Australia can still get to 60.5% (by winning 2 matches each against India and Sri Lanka) so a series result of 3-2 will not be enough for India to qualify on their own (without anyone’s help). So, India will need to win 2 and draw 1 of the remaining 4 matches to have fairly high chances of qualifying (series result of 3-1 vs Australia) because even then, one scenario can still prevent India from reaching the final.
If Sri Lanka defeats South Africa in the 2nd test and wins 2-0 against Australia + South Africa wins 2-0 against Pakistan. In this case, Sri Lanka can get to 61.5% and South Africa will be on 61.1% and that means they both will qualify for the WTC final.
So, under the following circumstances, the most favourable result for India will be:
- 5-0 / 4-1 / 4-0 / 3-0 scoreline in BGT, India will qualify without anyone’s help
- 3-1 victory for India in BGT, India will still have a very good chance of qualifying (South Africa will have to defeat Sri Lanka at home in the 2nd test)
- 3-2 victory for India in BGT, India will need Sri Lanka to at least draw one game against Australia (India will be on 58.8% and Australia then cannot cross 57%)
- 2-2 scoreline BGT, things will get complicated. India would first need SA to defeat SL by 2-0 and then would want Sri Lanka to win the series against Australia by a margin of 1-0 or more (India would be on 55.3% and Australia then cannot cross 53.5%)
If BGT ends in 2-2 and the Australia – Sri Lanka series ends in 0-0 (highly unlikely to see 2 draws in a 2-match series), then India and Australia will end up on the exact number of points (55.3%).
What are the scenarios if the team positions are tied?
- Tiebreaker 1: Series wins – Both India and Australia would be sitting with 3 series wins each so we don’t have a winner
- Tiebreaker 2: Away series wins – again both India & Australia have the same number of away series wins – again nothing to separate the two teams
- Tiebreaker 3: Higher rank in ICC test rankings – Australia are currently ahead and likely to remain ahead with the mentioned results, so Australia will qualify.
Australia
Australia needs 4 wins out of the remaining 6, which gets them to 60.5%, anything below 4 wins and they will have to rely on other teams. But the good thing for them is, they would know the exact equation when they tour Sri Lanka. Their scenarios are covered in the India section.
New Zealand
Black Caps need favours from other teams, but before that, they need to win the remaining 2 matches against England, which gets them to 57.1% and then hope that India does not win more than 3 games in BGT + Australia are stopped at 3 wins and 1 draw + Sri Lanka lose at least 1 of their 3 remaining games.
There are a lot of scenarios with multiple teams dropping points together which will help the Kiwis, but that’s not an ideal scenario for any team if they want all the teams to drop points together. To remain in contention, they will first have to win their next game against England.
Sri Lanka
Very simple equation, win the next 3 and qualify for the final. Their fate is still in their hands. If they fail to win their next match, they cannot cross 53.8% even if they whitewash Australia at home (which itself is a difficult task), 53.5% is not likely to help them qualify for the final, but they could still have a very big say on the teams qualifying for the final