The Indian head coach Ravi Shastri wasn’t happy at all when he got to know that ICC has decided to change the rules of the World Test Championship.
For the unversed, when the Covid hit, the ICC’s technical committee tweaked the rules where each team would now have to qualify on the basis of percentage points and not the actual points they earned. And as per these changes, team Team India was the biggest loser in the new scenario because they now had to win series in Australia and seal the deal at home against England to seal the spot in WTC Final.
Talking about the same, Ravi Shastri slammed ICC and questioned the change in the rules. He said:
“I am sitting at home during Covid-19, right in the month of October-November. You have got more points than any other team in the world. 360 at that time, suddenly, a week later without playing any cricket, there is a rule that comes stating that the points would be decided on the percentage system and go from number one to three. Fine, that’s because of countries not wanting to travel, all acceptable and fine,”
Before the rules were changed by the ICC, team India were the front-runners to enter the World Test Championship final as they were at the top of the tables and were miles ahead of their competitors. However, ICC brought in changes to the system, prioritizing win percentage points. Talking about the same, Shastri said:
“In the percentage system, you’ve to go to Australia and beat Australia,” Shastri remarked. “If you don’t beat Australia, you come back home and beat England 4-0, you get to 500 points, you still don’t qualify. So we’ve had to dig deep. We’ve had to go down every hole to find water. We found it and earned our stripes to be in the final of the WTC – the biggest trophy in the world – with 520 points.”
He added:
“I cannot say how proud I am of my Indian cricket team going through this tough period and qualifying for the WTC final against all odds. When you go from No. 1 to No. 3 sitting in your bedroom not playing cricket, and then you qualify with No. 1 in every department – Top of the table, ICC rankings, percentage rankings… tomorrow there might be some other workings that come, I think we’ll be No.1 in that also.”
