World Test Championship final to be postponed, will be played from June 18-22

The final of the inaugural edition of the World Test Championship (WTC) reportedly will be rescheduled and will be played from June 18 to 22 with June 23 acting as a reserve day at the Lord's Cricket Ground. It was originally scheduled to be played from June 10 to 14.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) is set to make the changes keeping in mind the proximity between the WTC final and the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 final – dates are yet to be officially announced and any quarantine period that the players may have to undergo because of the coronavirus pandemic, as reported by news agency ANI.

With 430 points from five series, Team India is at the top of the WTC 2019-21 table and are most likely to be the part of the final at the Lord's. Kane Williamson-led New Zealand are placed second with 420 points from five Test series.

As a part of the 2019-21 WTC, India will be playing one more series against England, which is due to start on Feb. 5. India and England will lock horns in a four-Test series. Meanwhile, third-placed Australia are set to travel to South Africa for a three-Test series and in order to make it to the final of WTC, Tim Paine's side will need to win against the Proteas.

Last year, the ICC had decided to change the point-rating system of WTC due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The WTC table has now been revised to rank teams based on the percentage of points earned from the series played, meaning teams are ranked in order of percentage of points earned.

On Monday, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) announced that their international summer will kickstart with a home series against New Zealand. Both the sides will battle out in a two-Test series, which will be played at the Lord's (June 2-6) and Edgbaston (June 10-14).

Recently, Indian skipper Virat Kohli expressed his views about the WTC. "I think Test Championship, as an ICC tournament, should be right up there. All the other tournaments, for me, start under that. This is going to be the biggest of them all. Every team wants to make it to the final at Lord's. And we are not any different. We want those points and make sure that we qualify as early as we can, and be in that frame of mind to hopefully win that," said Kohli.