ICC Test Championship

The ICC Test Championship is an international competition run by the International Cricket Council in the sport of cricket for the 10 teams that play Test cricket. The competition is notional in the sense that it is simply a ranking scheme overlaid on all international matches that are otherwise played as part of regular Test cricket scheduling with no consideration of home or away status.

In essence, after every Test series, the two teams involved receive points based on a mathematical formula. The total of each team's points total is divided by the total number of matches to give a 'rating', and the Test-playing teams are ranked by order of rating (this can be shown in a table).

The points for winning a Test match or series are greater than the team's rating, increasing the rating, and the points for losing the match or series are always less than the rating, reducing the rating. A drawn match between higher and lower rated teams will benefit the lower-rated team at the expense of the higher-rated team. An 'average' team that wins as often as it loses while playing a mix of stronger and weaker teams should have a rating of 100.

The International Cricket Council awards a trophy, the ICC Test Championship mace, to the team holding the highest rating. The mace is transferred whenever a new team moves to the top of the rating list.

South Africa are currently the highest-ranked team in the ICC Test Championship having beaten Sri Lanka 1-0 in a two match series held in Sri Lanka in July 2014.

Current rankings

ICC Test Championship
Rank	Team	Matches	Points	Rating
1	South Africa	29	3308	114
2	India	32	3535	110
3	Australia	40	4376	109
4	Pakistan	28	2977	106
5	New Zealand	36	3578	99
6	England	40	3940	99
7	Sri Lanka	35	3123	89
8	West Indies	33	2504	76
9	Bangladesh	22	1026	47
10	Zimbabwe	10	53	5
Reference: ICC Rankings, 7 January 2016

Historical rankings

File:Test Rankings since Jun 2003.png

World rankings for the top eight teams from 2003 to June 2011

The ICC provides ratings for the end of each month back to June 2003. The teams that have successively held the highest rating since that date, by whole month periods, are:

Team	Start	End	Total months	Cumulative Months	Highest rating
Australia	June 2003	August 2009	74	74	143
South Africa	August 2009	November 2009	3	3	122
India	November 2009	August 2011	21	21	130
England	August 2011	August 2012	12	12	125
South Africa	August 2012	May 2014	21	24	135
Australia	May 2014	July 2014	3	77	123
South Africa	July 2014	Present	-	40	130
Reference: ICC Rankings

Since the ICC officially began ranking teams in 2003, Australia has dominated as it had done so in Test cricket since around 1995. However from 2009, several teams (Australia, South Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and England) have competed for the top positions.

The ICC recently applied its current rating system to results since 1952 providing ratings for the end of each month back to 1952 further indicating Australia's historical dominance in Test Cricket with the most consecutive months ranked first (112) from April 2000 to July 2009, the highest number of months ranked first (321) and the highest rating (143). The table only begins from 1952 as prior to this date, there is not enough data available due to the infrequency of matches and the small number of competing teams in the earlier periods.

The teams that have successively held the highest rating since January 1952 till May 2003, by whole month periods, are:

Team	Start	End	Total months
Australia	January 1952	May 1955	41
England	June 1955	February 1958	33
Australia	March 1958	July 1958	5
England	August 1958	December 1958	5
Australia	January 1959	December 1963	60
West Indies	January 1964	December 1968	60
South Africa	January 1969	December 1969	12
England	January 1970	January 1973	37
Australia	February 1973	March 1973	2
India	April 1973	June 1974	15
Australia	July 1974	January 1978	43
West Indies	February 1978	January 1979	12
England	February 1979	August 1980	19
India	September 1980	February 1981	6
West Indies	March 1981	July 1988	89
Pakistan	August 1988	September 1988	2
West Indies	October 1988	January 1991	28
Australia	February 1991	April 1991	3
West Indies	May 1991	July 1992	15
Australia	August 1992	January 1993	6
West Indies	February 1993	August 1995	31
India	September 1995	November 1995	3
Australia	December 1995	July 1999	44
South Africa	August 1999	December 1999	5
Australia	January 2000	February 2000	2
South Africa	March 2000	March 2000	1
Australia	April 2000	May 2003	38
Reference: ICC Historical Rankings

The summary of teams that have held the highest rating from 1952 to the present by whole month periods, are:

Team	Total months	Highest rating
Australia	321	143
West Indies	235	135
England	106	125
India	45	130
South Africa	42	135
Pakistan	2	110
Reference: ICC Historical Rankings

Trophy

Since 2001, the top-ranked Test team in the world has been awarded the ICC Test Championship mace. It is worth £30,000.

ICC World Test Championship

Main article: ICC World Test Championship

For the past few years there has been speculation that the ICC would introduce a Test Championship tournament, similar to that of the World Cup, Champions Trophy, World Twenty20 and ICC Intercontinental Cup.

ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat proposed a quadrennial tournament with the four best-performing nations meeting in the semi-finals and a final, in a bid to boost flagging interest in the longest form of the sport. The first tournament was meant to replace the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy in England and Wales. However, the Test championship was cancelled as the ICC stated that it was not supported by its broadcast partner – ESPN STAR Sports. This was mainly due to the fact that the broadcast of the Champions Trophy would generate much more revenue than a Test Championship.

Test championship calculations

Each team scores points based on the results of their matches over the last 3−4 years. A series must include at least two Tests. Series played in the first two years of the four-year limit count half; essentially, recent matches are given more weight. Each time two teams complete another series, the rankings tables is updated as follows:

Step 1. Find the series points for each team

• Award 1 point to a team for each match won
• Award ½ point to a team for each match drawn or tied
• Award 1 bonus point to the team winning the series
• Award ½ bonus point to each team if the series is drawn

Step 2. Convert these series points to actual ratings points

• If the gap between the ratings of the two teams at the commencement of the series was less than 40 points, then the ratings points for each team equals:

(The team's own series points) x (The opponent's rating points + 50) $+$ (The opponent's series points) x (The opponent's rating points − 50)

• If the gap between the ratings of the two teams at the commencement of the series was more than or equal to 40 points, then the ratings points for the stronger team equals:

(The team's own series points) x (The team's own rating points + 10) $+$ (The opponent's series points) x (The team's own rating points − 90)

and the ratings points for the weaker team equals:

(The team's own series points) x (The team's own rating points + 90) $+$ (The opponent's series points) x (The team's own rating points − 10)

Step 3. Update the ranking table

• Add the ratings points scored by each team to their total ratings points already scored (in previous matches).
• Update the number of matches played by each team by adding one more than the number of games in the series (a two Test match series will result in the match count getting incremented by three).
• Divide the new rating points total by the updated number of matches to get the updated Rating.

See also

• ICC Player Rankings
• ICC ODI Championship
• ICC T20 Championship
• International structure of cricket

External links

• ICC Test Rankings