ICC World Test Championship: Players to Be Seen with Jersey Number and Name; ICC Gives Green Signal

ICC has allowed all the nations to have their names and numbers on their jerseys in the upcoming ICC World Test Championship. The two-year-long championship is all set to begin from August with the arch-rivals Australia and England will take on each other for the Ashes. As ICC took the initiative to popularise the longer format of the game through this championship, this move is expected to be a cherry on the cake.

Although this is not the first time that the players will get to wear the whites having their names and jersey number. Australian state sides, as well as the English county sides who play the Sheffield Shield, are used to wear whites including names and numbers on the back of their jersey.

However, this will be new for the Virat Kohli led Indian team. This is the first they will play with whites including their names and jersey number when they take on West Indies in the second Test of the ICC World Test Championship.

“Yes, it starts from August 1 for the World Test Championship. It is a part of the wider plan to promote Test cricket,” earlier said Claire Furlong, the GM Manager [Strategic Communications] of ICC.

However, it is expected that the Indian team will not use jersey number 10 and 7 in Test cricket. Number 10 was used by batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar while Mahendra Singh Dhoni used the number 7. The Indian team has already retired jersey No 10, which batting legend Sachin Tendulkar wore in limited-overs and it is expected that they will do the same with former India captain MS Dhoni’s jersey number as well.

Meanwhile, nine of the top-ranked teams will be featured in the two-year-long tournament of the ICC World Test Championship and at the end, the two sides that will have the most number of points will play the final in 2021.