The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is not interested in a two-tier World Test Championship (WTC). According to a report in ESPN Cricinfo on Wednesday, the “ECB is not keen on a two-tiered World Test Championship (WTC) in which relegation could lead to England not being in the same division as Australia or India, thus potentially depriving them of their two most lucrative rivalries.”
The International Cricket Council (ICC) in July 2025 formed a working group to improve the WTC ahead of the next cycle, which begins in July 2027. It has been reported that the two-tier WTC system was among the most significant topics discussed at the ICC annual conference in July.
While speaking to BBC’s Test Match Special on Day 1 of the fifth India-England Test at The Oval last week, ECB chairman Richard Thompson said the two-tier model for Test cricket was being discussed by the ICC, but he was not sure if it was perfect.
“There are a lot of options that we’ve got to look at – tiers would be one of them,” he said. “We wouldn’t want, as England, we may go through a fallow period, and that means, what, we fall into Division Two, and we don’t play Australia and India? That couldn’t happen. There has to be a sense that common sense needs to play out here.”
According to him, a better solution could be tinkering with the existing WTC itself. He gave South Africa’s win over Australia in the final of WTC 2025 at Lord’s as an example, where, with the right support, smaller countries could emerge as strong contenders.
“The World Test Championship could work better than it does. It has definitely improved the narrative, [and] it has created a relevance,” Thompson said.
