Thursday's First Test between England and Pakistan at Lord's sees the birth of a new and potentially exciting concept in the world game, for it will be the first game to be part of the ongoing ICC Test Championship - bringing with it a new acronym into the world of ICCTC. But while the ICCTC is seen as a bold attempt to define the official rankings of the ten Test nations, the organisation on whose unofficial model the ICCTC was based has blasted the new championship as an "absurd compromise".

The ICCTC, whose details were unveiled yesterday by the International Cricket Council, was based upon a World Championship model developed by John Wisden & Co., and first published in their Wisden Cricket Monthly magazine in November 1996. The ICC model has one key difference - and this has aroused the ire of the Wisden people.

The Wisden World Championship model was based upon the premise of giving points - 2 for a win, 1 for a draw, 0 for a loss, of the most recent Test series, both home and away, played between each pair of Test countries, and then using an averaging method to determine rankings when some countries have played more series than others.

The ICC has adopted an almost identical formula, based on series played over the past five years... but have decreed that "one-off Tests" do not constitute a series, and therefore are not counted in the initial points table released yesterday.

Sri Lanka's win over England at The Oval in 1998, Zimbabwe's win over India two months later, and Bangladesh's inaugural Test match against India last year all count for nought in the ICCTC formula because the countries involved did not have the time to play more than one Test on tour.

In a statement released yesterday following the ICC's announcement of their Test Championship model, Wisden said that the new formula was "an absurd compromise, including some past results but ignoring others."

"We felt that there were two reasonable ways of starting the ICC Championship: either from scratch, ignoring all past results, or using the table we have developed since 1996", Wisden said.

The decision to disregard one-off Tests was described as "confusing, unjust and unjustifiable. It penalises certain countries for playing Tests that were quite legitimate at the time. Indeed, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe would dearly liked to have played the bigger countries in longer series but were denied."

"Retrospective legislation is always dangerous; this is a particularly bad example. We are very disappointed that ICC should have seen fit to damage the start of their own Championship", the Wisden press release went on to say.

Despite Wisden's alarm at the ICC doing something a little different to their own concept, some things remain common to both tables - Australia, South Africa and England are numbers 1, 2 and 3 respectively; Zimbabwe and Bangladesh are numbers 9 and 10.

Under the ICCTC as revealed yesterday, two points are allocated for winning a series and one for a drawn rubber. The result - and points allocation - of all future series will replace the previous equivalent. The ICC has modelled the Championship on the Wisden system, which has been running in the Almanack since 1996. The only significant difference between the two is that the ICC table is based on the results of previous series of two Test matches or more, while Wisden recognises one off Tests as a series.

At present, an average score per series (number of points won divided by number of series played) has been allocated to determine the top side, because not all teams have played each other home and away. This transitional arrangement will change to a straight points system when all teams have played each other home and away, in 2005.

A permanent and distinctive ICC trophy has been commissioned which will be awarded to the leading side in the Championship. It will automatically pass from one country to another as results confirm a change of Championship leader. As the outcome of the forthcoming England series against Pakistan and Australia cannot affect the leadership, the trophy will be presented to Australia at the start of their Test series against England in July.

The inaugural ICC Test Championship table is as follows:

Team          Played    Won   Lost    Drawn   Points   Average	
Australia       13      10      2       1       21      1.62	
South Africa    15       9      4       2       20      1.33	
England         14       7      6       1       15      1.07	
Sri Lanka       13       5      5       3       13      1.00	
New Zealand     15       6      7       2       14      0.93	
West Indies     12       5      6       1       11      0.92	
India           12       4      5       3       11      0.92	
Pakistan        15       4      7       4       12      0.80	
Zimbabwe        12       2      9       1        5      0.42	
Bangladesh       1       0      1       0        0        -	

The average is determined by dividing the points score by the number of series played. Bangladesh who only have their recent series loss to Zimbabwe to take into account, will not be allocated an average score until they have completed nine series - this is expected to occur in April 2003 when they play host to South Africa.

If a series as planned on the ICC's ten-year program is cancelled or not completed for any reason, no points shall be awarded to either country.

Regardless of the outcome of the England-Pakistan Test series, England will remain in 3rd place, and Pakistan in 8th following its conclusion.

© 2001 CricInfo Ltd