Cricket is considered a big deal all over the world. And the center of importance in the cricket world, for now, is the ICC World Test Championship finale, to be held on June 18-22 as New Zealand will face India after almost two years of rigorous competition among the top nine cricket teams. The much awaited pinnacle will take place at Hampshire Bowl in Southampton, England and it will be simpler to stream than before. The Finale of the World Test Championship is scheduled to be held from a span of 3 days, that is, from 18th June to 22nd June while the 23rd acts as a reserve day. Earlier the venue was fixed at Lord’s Cricket Stadium but then ICC changed it to Southampton Stadium.
The Vice President Media Rights of ICC, Sunil Manoharan told the media, “With an ever-growing fan base, the U.S. is a significant platform for the growth of cricket, and the ICC is pleased to partner with ESPN and Hotstar, allowing for extended coverage of the ICC World Test Championship. We are delighted that this collaboration will see the debut of an ICC event on ESPN+, in addition to Hotstar and ESPNCricinfo.com.” SuperSport bought the official rights to broadcast the India v New Zealand ICC Test Championship Final 2021 Live in Africa which is known as Africa’s most popular TV channel; concerning OTT Platforms as well as Digital Media Rights. Star Sports rule the TV broadcast plans for India, offering the WTC Finale in five different languages: Hindi, English, Telugu, Tamil, and Kannada. Indian cricket enthusiasts can also digitally stream the final match on Disney+ Hotstar.
Along with India, Star Sports will also broadcast the WTC in Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka. As for Asia’s other countries, Gazi TV, RTA Sports, and Etisalat-CricLife will present the finale live on TV for countries Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and UAE respectively. The traditional ESPN channels will cover in-progress as well as post-match highlights. In New Zealand and the UK, the ICC has partnered with Sky Sports for a live telecast of the match and similarly with Fox Sports in Australia and Supersport in Sub-Saharan Africa. The fans based in Canada and the US have a lot of choices before them, via Hotstar and Willow TV with ESPN+ particularly for the US people while Flow Sports will broadcast in the Caribbean.
In Pakistan, PTV Sports and Geo Super will do the honors of covering the live match of India vs New Zealand ICC World Test Championship Final 2021, while fans can also stream the live match of WTC Final on Geo Super’s Official Web Portal as well as App. T-Sports and Gazi TV are by far the Best Bengali Sports TV channels for Bangladesh that bring live matches of Domestic, International, and ICC tournaments. The live WTC faceoff between India and New Zealand will be broadcasted on Gazi TV. For those Bangladeshi fans who like to watch online, Rabbitholebd will telecast the WTC Final match of 2021. While the fans of the US can watch the live match on Willow TV, and Sky Sports will do the same for the UK cricket fans that is scheduled to begin on June 18th at the Southampton Cricket Stadium. Out of 720 points, India scored a smashing 520 and ended as the top test team in the whole series with 72.22 pct points while for the Blackcaps, New Zealand was the first to qualify for the WTC Final with 70.0 pct achieved in only five test series that year.
India beat England at its own home and got qualified for the WTC Finale while New Zealand had already made its position there long before. But looking at the table of points, India can be seen at the top rank of the test series; New Zealand holding the second spot. Australia follows it in the third spot with a total of 113 points and England holds the fourth position with 108 points. Although there is a slight issue with the final match date. It seems that the dates of the WTC Final and IPL 2021 Final clash with each other so BCCI and ICC are yet to make a final verdict. Moreover, due to the prevailing pandemic, the players have to have time to serve in Quarantine for being available for both Final Matches of IPL as well as World Test Championship.
After this championship series, the teams will not get much time to rest as the second ICC World Test Championship is scheduled to start in July 2021, and the next after that to be held in June 2023. The ICC World Test Championship also will be available to stream on Hotstar as it always is dedicated to serving sports content to Indian users. Outside of the United States, Hotstar is available as part of Disney+. But for the U.S. fans, they can get a Hotstar subscription at just $49.99 a year and can watch the WTC. Along with cricket, they will also get quality shows and movies from India. If you want the free online telecast of the ICC World Test Championship Final 2021 between the top-scoring teams India and New Zealand, then Smartcric, WebCric, and CricHD are the unofficial platforms to stream from any corner of the world.
The ICC’s interim chief executive, Geoff Allardice, has deemed the World Test Championship as a “real step forward” for the world of Test cricket and has declared prize money of $1.6million (£1.1million) for the winner of the WTC Final 2021, with $800,000 for the runner-up. Even if the match ends in a draw, the prize money will be split between the two teams. A year and a half ago, there was pandemonium in the ICC as to what future does the WTC beholds. But it is one of the very few things that has profited from the prevailing Covid-19 pandemic, forcing the ICC to restore the competition’s complex points system. As a result, the new system is so much better than its predecessor that the change will be made permanent for the next cycle of WTC. “Twelve months ago we were looking ahead with great uncertainty, halfway through the first cycle of the Test Championship.
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,” the ICC board told in a press conference. The WTC was spoiled a great deal because of its byzantine points system. Thankfully during the pandemic, it was scrapped and replaced with a new system altogether that ranked teams on the percentage of points they had won from those available in the games they had played. That implies that the ICC can make a standard number of points available in every Test, despite it being a part of a two-match or a five-match series.
Also, this new system compares teams on an ongoing basis, not considering how many series they have played in one cycle. While the ICC does not hold any broadcast partner for the WTC Finale 2021, the match can be viewed live on the new ICC.tv platform. Fans from all over the world need to sign up to watch the final match between New Zealand and India for free on the website www.icc.tv or download the app from Google Play Store or the App Store.
