NEW DELHI: The ICC World Test Championship will begin with the historic Ashes series between England and Australia. The bilateral Test series will get new dimensions through this championship, which will start from August 1. The first edition of the ICC Test Championship will run till June 2021.

The final will be played at Lord's, known as The Mecca of Cricket, in June 2021. The ICC Test Championship begins next week. But the idea came out in 2010. It was to be launched in the initial plan from 2013. It was the idea of replacing the ICC Champions Trophy.

Due to opposition from some teams, it was postponed until 2017 but that too could not be implemented. The idea of the ICC Test Championship, which begins now, was finalized in October 2017. The top nine teams in the ICC rankings will be part of the Test championship. The teams are India, England, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, West Indies, Bangladesh, New Zealand, South Africa, and Australia.

The matches that Ireland and Afghanistan will include will not be part of the Test Championship. All the nine teams will have to play against six teams. There will be three series of domestic and three foreign. A series can have a maximum of two to five matches. The matches will be similar to the usual bilateral series but now every match will have more significance than before.

In all, 27 series and 71 Test matches will be played in this first Test championship. The final match between the two top teams in the league stage will be played at Lord's on June 2021. The first championship will begin after the end of the second, which will last till April 2023.

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