WTC: India Must Find the Winning Formula at Home

South Africa's easy qualification to the World Test Championship (WTC) final and their subsequent upstaging of Australia at Lord's last week would have awakened team managements across the cricket sphere to the possibility of an unusual way to win the mace: where playing fewer Tests yields higher returns.

- Rasesh Mandani

MUMBAI:

On Tuesday, ICC declared the 2025-27 WTC cycle open, retaining the prevailing percentage points system designed to minimize the impact of an uneven spread of matches among teams. It was learnt that the ICC is okay with four-day Tests in future to help smaller nations play more games and longer series. But for the 2025-27 cycle, five-Test series are restricted to the Big 3—India, England and Australia.

ICC chair, Jay Shah, is understood to have expressed his support for four-day Tests with a view to sanctioning them in time for the 2027-29 WTC cycle, according to The Guardian.