The 2023-25 cycle of the World Test Championship has been a huge success in terms of crowd numbers. The 2021 final held in biosecure conditions at Southampton and the 2023 event at The Oval both saw sell-out attendances. This week the iconic Lord’s is the venue for the third final, this time between Australia and South Africa.
The Championship was launched in 2019 with the aim of adding significance to bilateral Test series by determining the best team in the sport’s longest format over a two-year period. It replaced the ICC Champions Trophy as the pinnacle of Test cricket and allows teams to play three home and three away series against the other eight full members.
It’s been criticised for creating an imbalance between richer nations and the rest. This is because five-Test series between the likes of Australia, India and England are high quality, exciting and lucrative but can also be more difficult to win. Meanwhile, smaller nations playing two-Test series may face fixture fatigue.
It was originally thought that the Championship could be improved by introducing a long league stage similar to the ODI and T20 World Cups, with semi-finals and a final. However, this was not implemented in the end because of financial concerns and the idea was dropped. This would have meant a more complex system, with points deductions and divisions, which were deemed to be too much of a compromise on the integrity of the game.