As the news of the postponement of Australia’s tour of South Africa was reported, the New Zealand team and fans rejoiced as this meant that the Black Caps qualified for the final of the ongoing ICC World Test Championship, to be played at Lord’s from June 18 to June 22, 2021.

The ongoing COVID-19 situation in South Africa has led to Australia calling off the tour for now. Australia was scheduled to play a three-Test series later this month.

“Following extensive due diligence with medical experts, it has become clear that traveling from Australia to South Africa at this current time poses an unacceptable level of health and safety risk to our players, support staff and the community,” CA’s interim chief executive Nick Hockley said in a statement.

This meant that New Zealand qualified for the final of the ICC World Test Championship, as Australia was penalized four points for slow over-rate in the Melbourne Test against India. If that had not happened, Australia would have qualified for the final in place of New Zealand.

ICC postpones the final of the World Test Championship by 8 days to avoid clash with IPL 2021

Now New Zealand are likely to face either India or England in the finals at Lord’s, given that the two teams will face off in four-Test matches starting February 5.

In order to qualify for the WTC final, India needs to win the Test series 4-0, 3-0, 2-0, 3-1, or 2-1 against England. For England to qualify, they would need to beat India by margins of 4-0, 3-0, or 3-1 in the Test series.

However, Australia still has a chance to qualify if the India-England Test series ends in any other margin.

Apart from these scenarios, there are some more permutations and combinations for India, England, and Australia to go through to the final of the World Test Championship.