India suffered their first defeat in the World Test Championship on Sunday. The side led by Virat Kohli were thumped by New Zealand in the first Test in Wellington. As Kane Williamson-led NZ side took an unassailable 1-0 lead in the two-match Test series, they also handed India their first defeat in 9 Tests. India’s last Test defeat was in Perth against Australia in December 2018. Since then, the side had won 8 and drawn 1 Tests since then.

 

With the win, New Zealand also earned 60 points in the World Test Championship table to climb into fifth position with 120 points, surpassing Sri Lanka who slip down to 6th position with 80 points. India remained rooted their top position in the table with 360 points, with Australia at 2nd position with 296 points.

Why did New Zealand earn 60 points on winning the match, while India had won only 40 points each after winning every Test match against South Africa in October last year? That is because, as per ICC rules, every Test series carry 120 points in total, irrespective of the number of matches in the series.

Explaining the points table:

Each series is worth 120 points, distributed over the number of matches in a series. For example, a two-match series will mean 60 points for each Test while a three-match series will give 40 points to each Test match. A tie will be 50% of the points available, whilst a draw will be a 3:1 points ratio.

Matches in series (2) – Win/Tie/Draw – 60/30/20

Matches in series (3) – Win/Tie/Draw – 40/20/13

Matches in series (4) – Win/Tie/Draw – 30/15/10

Matches in series (5) – Win/Tie/Draw – 24/12/8

Hindustantimes

 

Since India’s series against South Africa last year had three matches, each match was worth 40 points. Since the ongoing Test series against New Zealand is a two-match series, each match is worth 60 points.

Speaking after the defeat, India captain Virat Kohli said: “Day 1, the toss did turn out to be very important. But at the same time, we take a lot of pride in being competitive as a batting unit and we were just not competitive enough. I don’t think we put their bowlers under enough pressure. Anything over 220-230 and we would have been talking a different language. Even the deficit looks lot lesser if you get that score and take those last three wickets cheaply.”

The two teams will play the 2nd Test in Christchurch which will begin from Saturday.