Nathan Lyon suggests WTC final should be a three-match series, says tournament feels like 'a genuine big World Cup'

Veteran Australian off-spinner Nathan Lyon has suggested a three-Test series instead of a one-off fixture for the World Test Championship final, while praising the tournament for its unique format that sets it apart from other cricketing competitions.

Lyon, however, suggested having matches in different conditions instead of having all three games in the same country/region in order to make the title-deciding series a lot more exciting and giving both teams an equal shot at the trophy.

“One thing I would like to see, I’d like to see the World Test Championship Final potentially in a three-match series. That may become a little bit better because you potentially can lose using a Test match in one session where (in a three-match series) it may allow teams to bounce back all your show their dominance and win 3-0. We’re pretty time-poor anyway and that’s going to be a challenge but that’s one thing I would change.

“You potentially could go one in England, one in India, one in Australia, so you have all different conditions, but obviously, the timing of that changes everything. I don’t think we’re going to get on the MCG in the middle of August, just putting it out there,” Lyon said in a video posted by the ICC.

Read | WTC points table 2023-25: Latest World Test Championship standings and results

According to Lyon, the World Test Championship eliminates the concept of dead rubbers in a Test series as a team could still potentially qualify for a final by winning or drawing a match even if already have surrendered the bilateral series.

“Oh, yeah. I’ll just say it’s [World Test Championship] the pinnacle for Test cricket. People say it’s sometimes a dead rubber when you turn 2-0 up in a three-match series or whatever it may be. But I feel like there’s no more dead rubbers. I’ve never considered them dead rubbers, but there’s always points on offer now. You look at us last year losing against West Indies at the Gabba hurt us a fair bit,” Lyon said, referring to West Indies’ famous victory in Brisbane earlier this year.

“But then I would go to New Zealand and win away from home, which is one of the biggest challenges in Test cricket.”

The 36-year-old off-spinner, who is the leading wicket-taker among active cricketers with 530 scalps, added that Test cricket finally got a World Cup of its own with the introduction of the WTC.

“It’s massive, but I feel like the World Test Championship for me is like the World Cup and that’s a genuine big World Cup. When you are competing against the best for long periods of time over a two-year period, you have to be good for the whole lot,” Lyon added.

The World Test Championship was introduced by the ICC in 2019 to bring further context to the elite five-day format, which was struggling for relevance as well as popularity in the era of slam-bang cricket that the Twenty20 format provides.

The ICC used to award the ‘Test Mace’ to the highest-ranked team in the format before 1 April, the start of the English summer. The mace, however, has since been awarded to the team winning the World Test Championship.

The idea for the tournament was for the Full Members to play six series’ each, both home and away, over a two-year cycle, the matches in said series ranging anywhere from two matches to five.

The rankings on the WTC table were initially decided on the basis of points awarded per match, with a maximum of 120 points available in a series.

The ICC, however, later decided to introduce the concept of points percentage — where the number of points won by a team is divided by the total points on offer and multiplied by 100 — in order to determine the standings and eventually, the two finalists.

In the current WTC cycle that began last year and will conclude in the summer of 2025, 12 points are awarded for each victory with four for a draw and six for a tie.

New Zealand had won the inaugural edition in 2021 and trans-Tasman rivals Australia in 2023. Both editions have had India reaching the final, and the one-off match being played in England — Southampton in 2021 and The Oval in 2023. The 2025 final is scheduled to be played at Lord’s , the ‘Home of Cricket’, from 11 to 15 June.