Former India player turned veteran commentator Aakash Chopra has opined on the disparity in the number of matches each team will play in the new World Test Championship (WTC) cycle. He said that no team will play more than two Tests in a series against Bangladesh as well.

In a video shared on his YouTube channel ‘Aakash Chopra,’ he said, “The new cycle has started, and you believe everyone will want to play you if you are the champions, that they will want to play four or five-match series against you because you are the world champions. Wrong, that’s not the case. Neither did it happen with New Zealand nor is it happening with South Africa.”

“Australia will play 22 matches, England will play 21 matches, we will play 18, then there is 16 for New Zealand, and 14 for South Africa and the West Indies. Don’t ask about Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It’s been eight years of the WTC cycles, including this one, and Bangladesh have never played a three-match series. Nobody wants to play Bangladesh for more than two matches,” he further added.

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However, Aakash Chopra also stated that playing shorter series makes the WTC final qualification path easier as well.

“We are not rewarding. We are saying that teams can decide among themselves how many games they want to play against each other. The advantage of a two-match series is that you get full points quickly. So the qualification becomes easy. If you win two matches in the England series, you will get only 40 percent points,” he said.

“Qualification will be difficult for whoever is playing five or four-match series. However, the truth is that the cricket economy runs because of Australia, India and England. So these three teams have arranged five-match series between them,” Aakash Chopra concluded.