The tournament was played over two years. Each team were scheduled to play six other opponents, three at home and three away. Each series consisted of between two and five Test matches. Therefore, all participants did not play the same number of Tests, but played the same number of series. At the end of the league stage the top two teams played in the final. Each match is scheduled for a duration of five days.
The ICC decided that the same number of points would be available from each series, regardless of series length, so that countries that played fewer Tests were not disadvantaged. It also decided that points would not be awarded for series results, but for match results only. These would be split equally between all the matches in the series, regardless of whether or not a match was a dead rubber, so that every match counted. In a five-match series, therefore, 20% of the points would be available each match, while in a two-match series, 50% of the points would be available each match. Therefore, depending on whether the series is 2, 3, 4 or 5 matches long, the number of points awarded for a single match win would be a half, a third, a quarter, or a fifth of the maximum possible from the series. The ICC also decided that a tie should be worth half of a win and that a draw should be worth a third of a win. This all meant that after each match, a team could be awarded a half, a third, a quarter, a fifth, a sixth, an eighth, a ninth, a tenth, a twelfth or a fifteenth of the total points available from the series, depending on the result and how many matches the series happened to consist of. Ultimately, this meant a figure for the total points available from the series needs to be picked very carefully, as not many numbers give all integers when split into all these different fractions (360 does). Being a highly composite number, when 120 was split into all these fractions, an integer was obtained in all cases except one – the points awarded for a draw in a 3-match series should be 131⁄3 (a third of a third of 120), but the 1⁄3 had been dropped.[citation needed] Each series would therefore carry a maximum of 120 points with points distributed as follows: A team that was behind the required over rate at the end of a match would have two competition points deducted for each over it was behind. In January 2020, South Africa became the first team to be docked World Test Championship points, after a slow over-rate in the fourth Test against England.
| Matches in series | Points for a win | Points for a tie | Points for a draw | Points for a defeat |
| 2 | 60 | 30 | 20 | 0 |
| 3 | 40 | 20 | 13 | 0 |
| 4 | 30 | 15 | 10 | 0 |
| 5 | 24 | 12 | 8 | 0 |
Nine full members of the ICC participated in the competition: Australia , Bangladesh , England , India , New Zealand , Pakistan , South Africa , Sri Lanka , West Indies Since each team played only six of the eight possible opponents, the ICC announced that India and Pakistan would not play against each other in the first and second editions of the tournament due to the ongoing political issues between the two countries.[citation needed] The three full members of the ICC who did not participate were Afghanistan, Ireland and Zimbabwe. These were the three lowest ranked full members of the ICC. They had been included in the ICC Future Tours Programme and played a number of Test matches during this period against Championship participants and each other (Note: Ireland, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe, like the nine Championship participants, were not able to add further fixtures outside the FTP, including Test matches.) but these did not have bearing on the Championship (Note: the Netherlands were also included on the FTP as a one-day and T20-playing nation only.)
The schedule for the World Test Championship was announced by the ICC on 20 June 2018, as part of the 2018–2023 Future Tours Programme. Rather than being a full round-robin tournament in which everyone played everyone else equally, each team played only six of the other eight. Therefore, the total number of matches played by each team (home and away) in this tournament, and the two countries that each team did not face in this tournament, were as follows. (Note: This was not the total Test matches played by each team during this period, as some countries did play further matches during this period which were not part of this Championship, as part of the ICC Future Tours Programme for 2018–23. Some of these may be against the opponents they did not play in this Championship.) All the series were mutually agreed between the two nations involved; this had led to allegations that the schedule has been agreed based on what would provide the biggest television audiences, and therefore television receipts, rather than selecting an even spread of teams. Since each team played a different set of opponents, they can be considered as having an easier or harder schedules.
| Home \ Away | AUS | BAN | ENG | IND | NZL | PAK | RSA | SRI | WIN |
| Australia | — | — | — | 1–2 | 3–0 | 2–0 | — | — | — |
| Bangladesh | Cancelled | — | — | — | Cancelled | — | — | — | 0–2 |
| England | 2–2 | — | — | — | — | 1–0 | — | — | 2–1 |
| India | — | 2–0 | 3–1 | — | — | — | 3–0 | — | |
| New Zealand | — | — | — | 2–0 | — | 2–0 | — | — | 2–0 |
| Pakistan | — | 1–0 * | — | — | — | — | 2–0 | 1–0 | — |
| South Africa | Cancelled | — | 1–3 | — | — | — | — | 2–0 | — |
| Sri Lanka | — | 1–0 | 0–2 | — | 1–1 | — | — | — | — |
| West Indies | — | — | — | 0–2 | — | — | 0–2 | 0–0 | — |
| Team | Scheduled matches | Not scheduled to play against | |||
| Total | Home | Away | |||
| Australia | 19 | 9 | 10 | Sri Lanka | West Indies |
| Bangladesh | 12 | 6 | 6 | England | South Africa |
| England | 21 | 11 | 10 | Bangladesh | New Zealand |
| India | 17 | 9 | 8 | Pakistan | Sri Lanka |
| New Zealand | 13 | 6 | 7 | England | South Africa |
| Pakistan | 13 | 6 | 7 | India | West Indies |
| South Africa | 16 | 9 | 7 | Bangladesh | New Zealand |
| Sri Lanka | 12 | 6 | 6 | Australia | India |
| West Indies | 13 | 6 | 7 | Australia | Pakistan |
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted on international cricket fixtures, including matches in the Championship. In March 2020, the second Test match between Pakistan and Bangladesh was postponed due to the pandemic. Later the same month, the two-match series between Sri Lanka and England was also postponed. The following month saw Australia's tour to Bangladesh and the West Indies tour to England being postponed. In June 2020, the two-match series between Bangladesh and New Zealand and the three-match series between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh were both postponed. South Africa's tour of the West Indies was postponed, after the fixtures clashed with the West Indies rescheduled tour to England. On 29 July 2020, the ICC confirmed that their attention had moved to the fixtures in the World Test Championship, with their priority on rescheduling the six Test series that had been postponed. The ICC ultimately accepted several series would not take place as part of the Championship and changed the points system to account for the variation in the number of series played per side.
The International Cricket Council declared a total prize money pool of US$3.8 million for the tournament. The prize money was allocated according to the performance of the team as follows: The winning team also got the ICC Test Championship Mace, previously presented to the top team in ICC Men's Test Team Rankings at the April cutoff-date of a year between 2003 and 2019.
| Position | Prize money (US$) |
| Winner | $1,600,000 |
| Runner-up | $800,000 |
| Third | $450,000 |
| Fourth | $350,000 |
| Fifth | $200,000 |
| Sixth | $100,000 |
| Seventh | $100,000 |
| Eighth | $100,000 |
| Ninth | $100,000 |
| Total | $3,800,000 |
The second match was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to a busy schedule, the match would be postponed until the 2021–22 season and outside the Championship season.
This series did not happen due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This series was originally scheduled for June 2020 but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This series did not happen due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This series was originally scheduled for March 2020 but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This was originally a three-match series scheduled for January 2021. This was originally a five-match series. This series did not take place as originally scheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and could not be a part of the Championship season. This series originally comprised three Test matches and was scheduled for July–August 2020, then postponed to October 2020, but was rescheduled again due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This series was scheduled to be played in July 2020 but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The top 5 players in each category are listed.
Source: Wikipedia