England docked 19 points, Australia 10 in Ashes

England have been fined 19 World Test Championship (WTC) points for slow over rate in the Ashes Test series. As a result, England fell down at fifth position in the latest standings of the two-year-long tournament. The Australian team too faced 10 points penalty, but still remained in the third position in the points table. 

The International Cricket Council (ICC) introduced these sanctions after the ICC Annual Conference in Durban, South Africa on Thursday, July 13. These sanctions would also take into account all the matches played before the announcement of the new regulation, retrospectively. 

“England fell two overs short in the first Test at Edgbaston, nine in the second Test at Lord’s, three in the fourth Test at Old Trafford, and five in the last and final Test at The Oval,” ICC press release said. 

For every over short, one point would be deducted from all points earned by the team. The decision would be conveyed to the teams after the end of the series. 

Australia fell only 10 overs short during the fourth Test in Manchester and hence were docked only 10 points. Apart from the deduction in points, the teams are also fined in the form of their match fees by the ICC.
 

Picture depicting how England and Australia were docked WTC points during the Ashes. Photo: ICC

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India, West Indies, Sri Lanka and Pakistan were the other four teams involved in Test cricket apart from England and Australia in Ashes. While India won the two-match series against West Indies 1-0, Pakistan whitewashed the Sri Lankans 2-0 away from home. The Ashes was drawn 2-2. 

All these results combined with slow over-rate penalties have put Pakistan at the top of the points table while Sri Lanka sits at the bottom. England and Australia could have been in the third position jointly, but 19 point penalty means that the English only have 15 percentage points from the 100 that they could have had and lie in the fifth position. 

How is the percentage of points calculated in the WTC points table?

Each win in WTC gives 12 points while a draw gives four points. There are obviously no points for a loss while a tie can fetch 6 points. Since teams play series varying from two matches to five matches, therefore not all of them could have a similar number of points. 

As a result, the percentage of points (PCT) system was created by the ICC to make all series equal despite the varying number of matches. So, if a series has five games and Team A wins all the matches, it will have 60 points and 100 percentage points as they won 60/60. At the same time, another Team B wins two games out of two. So though it will have only 24 points, its percentage of points will remain at 100. 

Percentage of Points = Number of points won divided by the total number of points available multiplied by 100. 

*Source- ICC
**PCT- Percentage of Points