ICC World Test Championship: How England’s win against West Indies in Manchester affect points table?

ICC World Test Championship: The result for the England and West Indies 2nd Test is in the books. England, after suffering a four-wicket defeat in the first Test in Southampton, beat England convincingly in the 2nd Test in Manchester to level the series 1-1. Ben Stokes, who scored 176 runs in the first innings and followed it up with an unbeaten 78 runs in the 2nd innings, was the star of the show, alongside seamer Stuart Broad, who picked up 3 wickets on the final day to rattle Windies batting line-up.

But now that the series is levelled, there is a bigger question to address to. On the larger scheme of things, how does England win affect the points table and what does it mean for the hosts?

Since, all the series under the current World Test Championship cycle are total worth 120 points, each match in the ongoing series between England and West Indies is worth 40 points. This means that England gained a valuable 40 points after Manchester win and have now climbed to the third position in the table with a total of 186 points.

England are only behind table-toppers India, who are sitting pretty on top with 360 points, and Australia who are in the 2nd position with 296 points. West Indies are currently placed in the 7th position with 40 points and currently have a mountain of a task ahead of them to push towards the top four spots.

Meanwhile, Windies captain Jason Holder after the defeat expressed his disappointment: "We're disappointed with the result. We have let ourselves down. England played a good game of cricket so they deserve all the credit. We could have stretched the game yesterday, but that's when we let ourselves down and lost wickets in clusters. England bowlers challenged our batters a lot, stuck to their tasks, and held their lengths," Holder said at the post-match presentation ceremony.