WTC Finals: ICC has indicated the venue for the finals of both the 2023 and the 2025 World Test Championship events. The final of the 2021 edition was held in Southampton and for the next two editions, as well, the summit clash will happen in the same nation.
WTC Finals in 2023 and 2025 to be hosted by the same venue
The iconic Lord’s Cricket Ground in London will play host to the two most exciting games of Test cricket in the next few years. ICC had talked on the same lines recently. In BBC’s Test Match Special sometime ago, ICC chair Greg Barclay had hinted of the same. He had mentioned, “It’s June so that rules out a number of other venues and we’ve got to get certainty around where it’s hosted.”
The ‘Home of Cricket’ is historic ground and it is fitting that cricket’s purest format will have its premier championship final played at the venue. A few weeks ago, ICC had even announced the schedule for the next two cycles of WTC.
Should ICC have looked for alternate options?
While the Lord’s is one of the best venues for the game, a discussion has already been triggered as to why other nations are not getting an opportunity. The exact reason for the same is yet to be revealed, though.
Test cricket is a format that needs to be marketed more aggressively to reach the masses. While T20 cricket has its leagues and the ODI format has the World Cup, the World Test Championship is fairly new and has the scope for becoming more popular.
A strategy for this could have been to host the finals in a different venue. It also needs to be noted that for three straight WTC Finals, the game will be held in England. While this would be beneficial to the teams from the SENA group because they play most of their cricket in similar conditions, the subcontinent teams will have some issues to tackle. Therefore, it is interesting which venue ICC will pick for the WTC Finals in 2027.
