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All the Test cricket attention this winter is justifiably fixated on the upcoming Ashes, but before Australia does battle with England for the urn, there’s the small matter of the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) World Test Championship final in London.
Australia will meet India at The Oval in the second-ever final, the biennial conclusion to find the world’s best Test team.
And, although situated conveniently as a warm up ahead of the five Ashes series, there is silverware up for grabs in this match, which could elevate its importance.
You can follow all the action from The Oval in the ABC Sport live blog from Wednesday, June 7 from 7:00pm AEST, or listen to live commentary from 7:15pm AEST on the ABC Listen App via the dedicated red cricket button.
Here’s everything you need to know.
What is the ICC World Test Championship?
The ICC introduced the World Test Championship in 2019 in an attempt to breathe some desperately needed life into the format.
Outside of England, Australia and India, Test cricket was — and plenty would say still is — slowly dying, losing relevance amidst changing societal preferences, exacerbated by the rise of T20 franchise cricket.
Essentially, the ICC proposed a league-style format over a two-year period where each Test played was worth points.
At the end of the two-year period, during which a team must play three home series and three away series, the top two sides play off in the final.
In the first cycle, those two teams were India and New Zealand.
New Zealand ended up winning the title by beating India by eight wickets at the Rose Bowl in Southampton in June 2021.
So how does it work?
Nine of the 12 Test-playing nations competed in the first World Test Championship, and the same nine competed in the latest cycle: Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka and the West Indies.
That means there’s still no place for Test newcomers Ireland or Afghanistan — who have struggled to even get a Test to play in since being admitted as full ICC members — and troubled Zimbabwe.
Of course, not all Test series’ are created equally: The Ashes for example, will take place over five Tests, while most bilateral series settle for the minimum allowed under the rules — two — so they can offset the financial losses they’d rack up by hosting a Test by playing more lucrative limited-overs matches.
Indeed, due to the different degrees of importance placed on Test matches by each country, over each two-year period teams end up playing vastly different numbers of Tests: England played 22 matches in this two-year cycle, for example, while Sri Lanka managed 12.
So how ‘fair’ is the World Test Championship?
The more mathematically aware of you will notice that over the course of six series in a two-year period, there’s no chance of all the countries playing each other.
Australia, for example, have not played Bangladesh or New Zealand in this latest cycle. England, meanwhile, have avoided Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
The inherent fixture inequality of a first class championship is nothing new — it took several decades for the fledgling County Championship to ensure all teams played the same amount of games before a champion could be decided.
But while there is no easy way to ensure all teams play the same number of Tests, there has been some effort to equalise the competition.
Points are awarded per Test played: 12 points for a win, four for a draw and six for a tie.
The overall standings will not be determined simply by totting up the number of points, but by the percentage of points that a team could have collected over that period.
So who finished top of the ladder?
The final table shows Australia coming out on top over the last two year cycle, having won 66.67 per cent of the points they could have in the 19 Tests they played.
India finished second, with 58.80 per cent of points earned from their 18 Tests.
In recent contests, India has had the upper hand, holding the Border-Gavaskar trophy since 2017 and retaining it over the last three series, twice winning 2-1 in Australia before their 2-1 series win on home soil earlier this year.
What is each team’s record at the Oval?
Australia have played at the venue 38 times in Test matches, winning seven with 17 defeats and 14 draws.
That makes The Oval the venue Australia has played most Tests at of any in England, even more than Lord’s (37).
It is also Australia’s least successful venue in the country (of grounds that have hosted more than two Tests), with a win rate of just 18 per cent.
Australia’s most recent victory came in 2015, one of two victories in their last six visits, but those were the only two wins since 1972, a run of 13 Tests.
India have fared even worse though, winning just twice in 14 Tests — a win rate of just 14 per cent — with five defeats and seven draws.
Having said that, India’s record in Test matches in England is pretty woeful in any case.
In 68 Tests in England, India has just 9 victories, with 37 defeats and 22 draws.
What if the final is a draw?
Given that this match is being played in England, in June, odds are that time may be lost to the weather — although the forecast suggests cloudy conditions will prevail as opposed to rain.
To account for the possibility of weather impacting the match, the Test is scheduled to have a sixth day as insurance, although this can only be used in the event of time being lost.
A sixth day was needed in the last World Test Championship final, when the first and fourth days were lost to rain.
Six of the last 20 Tests between Australia and India have finished in a draw.
If the game finishes in a draw though, that will be that. Despite Australia finishing higher on the ladder than India, the competition will be shared.
Who is playing for Australia?
Australia had included Josh Hazlewood in its 15-man squad, but the injury-plagued quick was replaced on Sunday by Michael Neser.
Neser in in excellent form in red ball cricket, having taken 19 wickets at 25.63 in five County Championship Division 2 matches for Glamorgan — including a hat-trick.
Pat Cummins will return to captain the side after missing the last two Tests in India following the death of his mother, Maria.
For India, batter KL Rahul is out after undergoing surgery on a thigh injury, but otherwise includes the full gamut of stars, many of whom have contributed to India’s excellent recent run of results in Tests against Australia.
Australia squad: Pat Cummins (captain), Scott Boland, Alex Carey (wk), Cameron Green, Marcus Harris, Michael Neser, Travis Head, Josh Inglis (wk), Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Todd Murphy, Steve Smith (vc), Mitchell Starc, David Warner.
India squad: Rohit Sharma (captain), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, KS Bharat (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, Ishan Kishan (wk)
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