Team India slips to 2nd place in ICC Test rankings courtesy new points formula

Indian team is out of action since March. They will start their action against Australia from the 27^th of November.

In the meantime, ICC has changed some rules regarding the World Test Championship format. Two finalists of the ongoing World Test Championship will be decided by the ‘Percentage of Points earned’. ICC committee headed by former Indian spinner Anil Kumble has decided to chose the finalist on this basis in this disrupted World Test Championship.

Earlier it was decided that the nine top-ranked sides will play six series over two years with the top two making the final at Lord’s. But it was postponed or cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So, ICC needs to find out some other way.

“Both the Cricket Committee and Chief Executive Committee support the approach of ranking teams based on completed matches and points earned as this reflects their performance and doesn’t disadvantage teams that have been unable to complete all their matches through no fault of their own”- ICC Chief Executive Manu Sawhney said about this new system.

But it is bad news for Team India as it has seen them in the second position in this new point formula. They are now behind Australia on the leaderboard.  Australia has a point percentage of 0.822 and India has 0.75.

Interestingly India will play 4 Tests against Australia this December and January. Virat Kohli’s man will surely want to get better of the Aussies and want to get back to the top again.