The Indian cricket team has reached the first position in the WTC i.e. World Test Championship after drawing the series against South Africa. From here the Indian team's mission WTC 2025 has gained momentum. After facing defeat in the first match, Team India made a strong comeback in the second test and won by 7 wickets.
After the WTC final in June 2023, a new cycle of the championship started. India have so far toured West Indies and South Africa in the 2023-25 cycle. India played 2-2 Tests in both the countries. India got one win and one match was drawn in West Indies. At the same time, in South Africa the team got 1 win and 1 loss.
In WTC, every team has to play at least 6 series, but the number of matches in each team's series is not fixed. In some series there are only 2 test matches, while in some series there are 5 test matches. In such a situation, if the ranking were made on the basis of total points, then those teams which play more Test matches would have benefited more. To avoid this situation, ICC gives importance to percentage points for ranking and this is how the rank is decided.
The England team will come to India to play a Test series after 3 years. This time there will be 5 matches in the series. The first Test will be played from 25 to 29 January, the second Test from 2 to 6 February, the third Test from 15 to 19 February, the fourth Test from 23 to 27 February and the fifth Test from 7 to 11 March.
India will face a challenge in terms of WTC against England. The matches will be competitive in the 5-match series. The last Test series between India and England took place in England during August 2021. The 5 test series was drawn 2-2. The last series between the two in India took place in February 2021, this 4-Test series was won by India 3-1.
At the same time, after India, England will next play 2 Test series against West Indies and 3 Test series against Sri Lanka.
The Indian team will tour Australia in November. Winning this series will be important for the team, because it will be at the home of Australia in which there can be 5 Tests. Australia is the only team among the Cena (South Africa, England, New Zealand, Australia) countries which has not been able to win a Test series against India in the last 10 years. The team's last win was in 2014 on its own home ground. Since then, India has defeated Australia in 4 series by a margin of 2-1. Of these, 2 were in India and only 2 were in Australia. In such a situation, the 5 Test series can be challenging for India as well as Australia in terms of WTC.
The Indian team played the finals of both WTC seasons (2019-2021) and (2021-23). In the first season i.e. 2019-21 season, India was on the top of the table. Whereas, India was at second place in the 2021-23 season. First, India faced New Zealand in the finals and then Australia in the second season. India lost in both the matches.
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