Aussies awarded prizemoney ahead of WTC final

Australia's Test side have netted themselves US$450,000 (A$583,000) for finishing third in the inaugural World Test Championship, as the ICC revealed the winners of this week's final will receive US$1.6m.

New Zealand and India will meet at Southampton's Rose Bowl from Friday, with US$800,000 on offer for the runner-up, while the $2.4m prize pool will be split evenly if the match is a draw or a tie.

The winner will also claim the Test Championship mace, which had previously been awarded to the team that held the top spot on the Test team rankings at the ICC's annual April cut-off date.

Australia missed the opportunity to push for a spot in the World Test Championship final when the three-Test tour of South Africa was cancelled in February.

They were also docked four WTC points by the ICC (in addition to a fine of 40 per cent of players' match fees) for falling two overs short of the target over-rate in the Boxing Day Test.

That penalty came back to bite them when the South Africa tour was cancelled, which confirmed New Zealand's spot in the WTC final. India then beat England in a home series to ensure they also made the final.

England finished fourth, and will pick up US$350,000 while fifth-placed Pakistan claim US$200,000 while West Indies, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh will each receive US$100,000.

Ahead of this week's final, which will be broadcast in Australia by Fox Cricket and Kayo, the ICC has confirmed the percentage points system that was introduced last November in response to the large number of cancelled series due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic is to remain in place for the next cycle that runs until 2023.

"We are going to stick with the percentage of points won method to rank teams," ICC acting chief executive Geoff Allardice said.

"That percentage I think served us well in the second half of the competition.

"One of the things that happened during this cycle was that it became evident that not everyone was going to complete their six series as a result of postponements.

"Because we have had teams playing uneven number of series, we made it a point to tweak the points system and make it as fair as possible."

"Now we can put a standardised number of points per Test match, it doesn't matter whether it is a two-Test or a five-Test series.

"The same number of points will be available for each match that's played. Every team will be judged on the percentage of points and not on the total."

Allardice also hailed the success of the WTC in adding more context to the five-day game.

"Twelve months ago we were looking ahead with great uncertainty, halfway through the first cycle of the Test Championship," Allardice said.

"But as we led up to the last couple of series in the competition we had four teams in the running for the two spots in the final and in the minds of a lot of people those last three or four months painted a picture of what the future might look like for the WTC.

"It was obvious that the interest in certain series wasn't just restricted to the two teams involved.

"It was coming from all over the cricketing world and to bring that sort of context to Test cricket has been a real step forward."