Highlight
This year’s WTC rankings had Australia in second place.
Australia defeated England by nine wickets in the opening Test.
A 1-0 lead in the Ashes series gave them an advantage in the final four matches.
Australia’s ninth-wicket victory over England in the first Ashes Test at the Gabba in Brisbane pushed them into second place in the ICC WTC Points Table.
This year’s World Test Championship (WTC) began with an overwhelming nine-wicket victory for the Australian men’s cricket team in Brisbane versus England. Australia is now in second place, behind just Sri Lanka by a hair in the rankings. There is now a three-way tie between Australia and Pakistan and India for the third and fourth place spots. They were penalized 100% of their match fees and were docked five ICC World Test Championship points for England’s performance. There were consequences for England in the WTC points table because of their slow over-rate in the first Ashes Test.
Second-place in the points standings has been reinforced recently by Pakistan’s whitewash of Bangladesh in their own backyard. Pakistan, on the other hand, was knocked down a notch in the rankings by Australia’s crushing victory.
With nine wickets in hand, Australian bowlers assured that the match would not go into the fourth day on Day 4 by completing the 20-run target. Alex Carey was Australia’s only wicket in their historic victory.
England was bowled out for eight wickets at the start of the day, giving the home team the upper hand. Dawid Malan and Joe Root, England’s heroes of the third day, we’re unable to hold their ground and had to leave in the first session.
Other players followed suit and succumbed to Australia’s first-innings 1-0 series advantage.
This year’s second Ashes Test will get underway at the Adelaide Oval on December 16.
