The Lord’s Cricket Ground has been named as the venue for the ICC World Test Championship Finals in 2023 and 2025, confirmed by the ICC on Tuesday (July 26).
ICC on the final day of its annual conference in Birmingham on Tuesday (July 26) announced the decision that the Lord’s Cricket Ground will serve as the venue for the ICC World Test Championship Finals in 2023 and 2025.
Lord’s was initially named as the venue to host the WTC 2021 before it was moved to Southampton amid the Covid-19 crisis.
Among these announcements, VVS Laxman and Daniel Vettori were confirmed as the current player representatives in the ICC Men’s Cricket Committee.
Roger Harper, the former West Indian cricketer will be the second-past player representative alongside Mahela Jayawardene on the committee. The FTPs for 2023-2027 for both the men and women got approved by the ICC with the calendar to be released in the upcoming days.
ICC’s chairperson Greg Barclay recently indicated in a chat with BBC’s Test Match Specialist that Lord’s was favored because the WTC Finals are scheduled to take place in June both in 2023 and 2025 which falls under English season.
“It’s June so that rules out a number of other venues and we’ve got to get certainty around where it’s hosted,”
Barclay said.
“We’re out of Covid now so subject to arrangements being made and being able to be hosted out of Lord’s I think that’s the intention.”
Meanwhile, the ICC welcomed Cambodia’s Cote D’Ivoire and Uzbekistan as newcomers and granted them Associate Membership status. Cambodia and Uzbekistan become the 24th and 25th members of the Asian division while Cote D’Ivoire has become the 21st member from Africa.
However, the latest additions have expanded the ICC’s membership base to 108, with 96 of them being associates. ICC also terminated Cricket Russia’s membership which has been suspended to the 2021 Annual General Meeting “due to continued non-compliance since July 2019”.
The ICC also decided to defer Ukraine’s application for membership “until cricket activity can safely resume within the country”.
The ICC received updates from the Afghanistan Working Group and also received information regarding the situation of women’s cricket in the country.
“Women’s cricket has developed rapidly since then. from the numbers of girls picking up bats through All Stars and Dynamos, joining clubs, and being able to progress on a pathway to the highest levels of performance. We’re seeing right now the positive impact that the UEFA Women’s Euro is having for football, and hosting this global cricket event will give us another incredible opportunity to inspire even more girls to pick up a bat and ball,”
said Clare Connor, the ECB’s interim chief executive.
The working group was announced by the ICC in November 2021 including Imran Khwaja (Chair), Ross McCollum, Lawson Naidoo, and Ramiz Raja as the members to review the status of the Afghanistan Cricket Board in the country.
The ICC’s representatives will meet the officials of ACB and the government in the coming weeks.
