Pakistan to play 13 Test matches at ICC World Test Championship 2010-21
Pakistan Cricket Team will play a total of 13 Test matches against six other participating nations in the newly-installed ICC World Test Championship which is slated to begin from 1st August and will continue till June 2021.
The 2019–21 ICC World Test Championship will be the inaugural edition of the ICC World Test Championship of Test cricket. It will start from 1 August 2019 and finish with a final in England in June 2021. It comes nearly a decade after the International Cricket Council (ICC) first approved the idea for a World Test Championship in 2010, and following two cancelled attempts to hold the inaugural competition in 2013 and 2017.
It will feature nine of the twelve Test playing nations, each of whom will play a Test series against six of the other eight teams. Each series will consist of between two and five matches, so although all teams will play six series (three at home and three away), they will not play the same number of Tests. Each team will be able to score a maximum of 120 points from each series and the two teams with the most points at the end of the league stage will contest the final.
The nine full members of the ICC who will participate are: Austria, India, South Africa, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, England, Pakistan and West Indies. While the three full members of the ICC who will not participate are: Afghanistan, Ire land and Zimbabwe.
Some of the Test series in this championship are part of a longer ongoing series, such as the 2019 Ashes series. Also, some of these nine teams will play additional Test matches during this period which are not part of this championship, as part of the ICC Future Tours Programme for 2018–23, mainly to give games to the three Test playing sides not taking part in this competition.
A Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) press release said,
“The ICC is introducing the World Test Championship to give context to bilateral Test series. The nine top-ranked sides will compete in the tournament, with each side playing six series on a home-and-away basis against mutually selected opponents in the two-year cycle. The top two teams will play the final in June 2021."
Pakistan’s run in the long-awaited championship will kick off this October when they host Sri Lanka in a two-match Test series. The two cricket boards are in negotiation to play series in Pakistan rather than UAE.
After the Sri Lanka series, Pakistan will travel to Australia for further two Tests in November before hosting Bangladesh in the UAE next January. They would then visit England for three Tests in July-August in 2020. Pakistan will go to New Zealand in December 2020 for two Tests before completing the cycle with a two-Test rubber at home in January 2021.
Schedule of Pakistan’s Test series:
1. October 2019: vs Sri Lanka, two home Tests.
2. November 2019: vs Australia, two away Tests.
3. January 2020: vs Bangladesh, two home Tests.
4. July/August 2020: vs England, three away Tests.
5. December 2020: vs New Zealand, two away Tests.
6. January 2021: vs South Africa, two home Tests.
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