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London: The long form of cricket is set to get a boost with the much-awaited World Test Championship soon to become reality.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Saturday announced its decision to replace the Champions Trophy - the last edition of which was won by India recently - with the World Test Championship, the inaugural edition of which will be held in England and Wales in June-July 2017.
India will host the second edition in February-March 2021, apart from hosting the World T20 in 2016 and the 50-over World Cup in 2023.
The BCCI was awarded the two events during the International Cricket Council (ICC) Annual Conference that ended on Saturday. India was represented by interim chief Jagmohan Dalmiya, also a former ICC president.
During the conference, the ICC finalised its global events from 2015 to 2023 and decided that full members have to play a minimum of 16 Tests over a four-year period to retain their Test status.
The ICC also confirmed that the inaugural ICC World Test Championship will be staged in 2017 and will be hosted by England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) June-July. The second edition, slated for 2021, will be held in in India in February-March.
The ECB will also host the 2019 World Cup and Cricket Australia (CA) got the hosting rights of the 2020 World Twenty20.
The ICC Board supported the strategy of ensuring an optimum balance between the three formats of the game - especially Test cricket.
To ensure that all ODIs played over the four-year cycle between ICC Cricket World Cups count towards a team's ranking, the ICC Board agreed to change the ODI rankings period from three years to four years.
For the sake of consistency, the ICC Board also agreed to change the calculation of the T20 rankings to cover the same period.
Meanwhile, the ICC also reviewed an inspection report by the ICC Venue Consultant on the venues for the ICC World Twenty20 Bangladesh 2014 and expressed its concern regarding the progress of construction and improvements to playing facilities in Cox's Bazar and Sylhet.
The Board noted that a further inspection and report is scheduled for August after which a final decision will be taken on the venues for the event.
Afghanistan was confirmed as the 37th Associate Member of the ICC while Romania was accepted as an Affiliate Member.
