India will once again not play Pakistan in the second cycle of World Test Championship with three away tours lined up in the next two years, starting with the England series next month. (More Cricket News)
As per rule, each of the nine nations in the World Test Championship calendar play against six nations of their choice and in the 2021-2023 cycle, India will play Sri Lanka instead of West Indies, whom they played in 2017 during the inaugural edition.
While the August 4 start of the five-Test series against England kicks off India's WTC campaign, they will also tour South Africa between December 2021 to January 2022 and an away series against Bangladesh in November 2022.
The biggest series apart from England away Tests will be the marquee four Tests against Australia at home between September and early November next year.
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India will host New Zealand in November this year for two Test matches and Sri Lanka will be hosted in February-March 2022 after the away tour of South Africa.
The ICC on Wednesday also officially confirmed that teams will be awarded standardised 12 points for a win, four for a draw and six for a tie during the second cycle.
The ICC further said that percentage of points won will be used to determine the standings.
Earlier, each Test series carried a value of 120 points which led to certain inequality in the table as a team winning a Test in a two-match series got 60 points compared to five-game series where a Test win is valued at 24 points.
ICC Acting Chief Executive Geoff Allardice said the changes were made to simplify the points system while taking learnings from the disruption last year.
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Apart from the India-England series, the Ashes later this year will be the only other five-match affair in the second cycle which will end in June 2023.
Australia's tour of India next year is the only four-Test series in the upcoming cycle.
India captain Virat Kohli said after losing the inaugural WTC final to New Zealand, he expects his side to regroup with "new energy" in the new cycle.
"It was great to have played the final of the ICC World Test Championship against New Zealand in what was a memorable contest. Not just the final, we saw the determination of players throughout the first edition of the championship," Kohli said.
"The following of cricket lovers too was great to see, and I am sure they will all be waiting eagerly for the second edition. We will regroup with new energy for the next cycle starting with our series against England."
