Sydney [Australia], November 26 (ANI): "It is definitely surprising," said India skipper Virat Kohli on Thursday while talking about the altered points system in the World Test Championship (WTC).

The WTC table will now be revised to rank teams based on the percentage of points earned from the series played, meaning teams will be ranked in order of percentage of points earned. Due to this rule change, India has slipped to the second spot in the WTC standings while Australia has attained the first spot.

"It is definitely surprising, we were told that points are the matter of contention for top two teams qualifying for the finals of the WTC and suddenly it has become about percentage out of nowhere. It is very confusing and it is difficult to understand why and if these things were explained to us from day one, it would have been easier for us to understand why this change has been made. It has happened out of nowhere, the further questions about this should be asked from the ICC to understand why this has been done," said Kohli during a virtual press conference ahead of the first ODI against Australia.

India was the leading the points table of WTC but with new rules, Australia toppled the Virat Kohli-led side as Tim Paine-led side has 82.22 per cent points while India has 75.00 per cent points. England is in the third position with 60.83 per cent points while New Zealand is at fourth in the table.

The ICC General Manager of Cricket Operations Geoff Allardice had explained why the WTC points system was amended.

"Number of series that were to be played under WTC has been postponed and it does not look like they will be finished before the end of competition window which is the end of March 2021," Allardice said in a video posted on ICC's Online Media Zone.

"We decided to make a change based on the matches that teams actually play and the percentage of points they win from those matches. The final is scheduled for June 2021 in the UK. The finishing points will now be determined by the percentage of points each team wins from the matches they actually play and that is to adjust for the teams that may not play all their matches by the end of the competition," he added. (ANI)