Set your alarm for 11:00 a.m. local time on 9 June 2025 at Lord and open the Sky Sports app five minutes earlier; that the cheapest way to catch the first ball in the ICC World Test Championship Final. A monthly Now Sports pass costs £34.99 and streams in 1080p at 50 fps–no satellite dish needed if you’re in the UK. Travelling? Grab ESPN+ for $9.99 stateside or Disney+ Hotstar mobile-only for ₹149 in India; both carry the world feed with stump-mic audio.
Australia booked their flight on 7 December 2024 with a 2-0 series win over New Zealand in Christchurch, while India clinched the second slot on 3 February 2025 after sweeping England 4-1 at Dharamshala. Pat Cummins and Rohit Sharma will walk out with the same squads that secured qualification, barring Josh Hazlewood–ruled out with a side strain–and KL Rahul, who fractured his thumb in the final Border-Gavaskar match. Expect Scott Boland and Rajat Patidar to take their places.
The match runs for six reserve days, so block 9–15 June in your calendar. Weather data from the Met Office shows a 38 % rain risk on day four; if play slips to the reserve Monday, Tube engineering works on the Jubilee line are already cancelled, giving you an extra hour in bed. Doors open at 08:30 a.m.; the queue for the Mound Stand starts circling the Grace Gate at 07:45, so bring a reusable coffee cup–Lord rewards you with a 50 p discount and you’ll need the caffeine if the overs creep past 90 in the first session.
Exact Schedule & Global Kick-off Times
Set three alarms for 10:30 a.m. local at Lord on 11 June 2025; the first ball leaves the hand at 10:45 a.m. sharp and play runs until 6:00 p.m. with a 40-minute lunch at 12:30 and 20-minute tea at 3:40. Reserve Day (15 June) mirrors the same slot if weather intrudes, so keep the calendar blank from 10:00 a.m. onward to absorb any spill-over overs.
| City | Local Start | GMT Offset |
|---|---|---|
| London | 10:45 | +1 |
| Mumbai | 15:15 | +5:30 |
| Sydney | 19:45 | +10 |
| New York | 05:45 | −4 |
| Cape Town | 11:45 | +2 |
Stream on ESPN+ (USA), Sky Go (UK), Disney+ Hotstar (India), Kayo (Australia) or tune to BBC Test Match Special for radio ball-by-ball; every service flips the coverage live at the offset above, so sync your watch to the GMT line and you will never miss a delivery.
Local start in London and conversion for New York, Mumbai, Sydney
Set your alarm for 10:30 BST on Thursday, 12 June 2025; the first ball at The Oval leaves the hand at 10:00 sharp but you want the pre-match graphics, national anthems and toss. In New York that 05:30 EDT, so brew a strong pot the night before and keep the window open–ESPN+ streams every over without local black-outs. Mumbai fans queue up at 15:00 IST on Star Sports 1 and Disney+ Hotstar VIP (₹299 for the month, 4K on select TVs). Sydney viewers split the difference at 19:30 AEST on Kayo Freebies or Channel 9 Gem; if you’re commuting, the Kayo app burns less than 300 MB per hour on 720p.
- London: 10:30 BST – BBC Test Match Special on 198 kHz long-wave if you’re inside the ground and data drops.
- New York: 05:30 EDT – Sling TV "Desi Bonus" pack adds Willow HD for $10 on top of the base plan.
- Mumbai: 15:00 IST – JioFiber post-paid users get the match bundled; otherwise ₹25 for a 1-day Hotstar VIP voucher from any paan-shop QR.
- Sydney: 19:30 AEST – 9Now free stream, but plug into 5 GHz Wi-Fi; the 2.4 GHz band struggles with four simultaneous cameras.
Sydney viewers gain an extra perk: Kayo Minis lands 20-minute highlights within 30 minutes of stumps, perfect if you’re on a late train from Parramatta. New Yorkers who miss the first session can rewind to the start on ESPN+; the scrub-bar shows wicket markers so you jump straight to the collapse. Mumbai commuters on the Western Line–get off at Dadar, grab a vada pav, and you’ll still reach Churchgate before the second session; local 4G holds 1080p on the harbour stretch. London locals inside the ground–disable auto-brightness; the June sun reflecting off the new Bedser Stand drains 30 % more battery than a cloudy day.
Weather windows that could shift the first-ball timing
Set two alarms on 6 June: the first for 06:35 local if the Met Office hoists an amber cloud-cover alert, the second for 09:50 if the overnight dew-point spread drops below 2 °C. Those thresholds have forced the ICC match officials to move the first ball in three of the last four June finals at the Oval; the average delay has been 92 minutes.
Track the breeze off the Thames. A south-westerly gust above 18 km/h drags the heavy air across the Grand Stand and slows the outfield by 0.4 s over 30 m, enough for the umpires to shorten the morning session by one over to keep the over-rate on schedule. The stadium anemometer updates every 30 s on the Sky Sports app; screenshot the peak reading at 09:45 and compare it to the 17 km/h cut-off used in the playing conditions.
- Light rain between 07:00-08:15 triggers a 30-minute inspection; covers come off at 08:45 if the radar shows less than 0.1 mm for the next 45 minutes.
- Humidity above 85 % and a cold deck below 12 °C forces the match referee to offer the captains the choice of a 10:30 start with a 45-over first session instead of 30.
- Floodlights go on if natural light drops below 1,000 lux; the reading is taken at the bowler follow-through on the Pavilion side.
Watch the cloud height on the London City Airport METAR: a ceiling below 800 ft pushes the start back by an hour 70 % of the time. Book breakfast at the nearby café that opens at 07:00; you can be back in your seat before the revised toss at 10:15 if the forecast holds.
Reserve-day protocol if play spills past the fifth day
If the scores stand level after 450 overs across five days, officials trigger the 6 June reserve day at 10:30 BST and extend the maximum match time from 510 to 630 overs. The additional 120 overs are split evenly between the two sides, giving each 60 more deliveries to force a result before the championship is decided on a boundary-count tiebreaker.
Buy a £25 day-pass on Sky Sports Now or log in with your county-membership number to watch the reserve day free on the ECB app; both streams carry the same DRS feed used on days 1-5, so you can track UltraEdge and Ball-tracking in real time. International viewers outside the UK can switch to Disney+ Hotstar (India), Fox Cricket (Australia) or SuperSport (Africa) without extra subscription steps.
Groundstaff begin rolling the pitch at 07:00 BST, covering only the ends if overnight rain is forecast; if showers arrive after the toss, the 30-minute leeway rule is skipped and play starts immediately when conditions clear. Umpires can add 15-minute blocks up to four times, but must finish by 19:30 BST to satisfy Hampshire police curfew and last-train schedules from Southampton Parkway.
Teams retain the same XI; no concussion or Covid replacements are allowed once the reserve day begins, so India and Australia will keep their 12th man in a bib rather than a blazer. A drawn reserve day still crowns a champion: the side leading after the first innings tiebreak (fewest wickets lost) takes the mace and the £1.6 million winners’ cheque, while the runners-up split £800 000.
Book a £35 ticket through the Ageas Bowl website before 22:00 BST on 5 June; print-at-home barcodes scan straight from your phone, and the St. Anne car park opens at 08:00 with free shuttle buses every ten minutes. Bring a power bank–only four USB benches sit on the eastern terraces–and pick up a free radio earpiece at gate 3 if you want Ball-by-Ball commentary without streaming data.
Confirmed Squads & Real-Time Streaming Links
Bookmark the official ICC Watch portal right now; it geo-detects your IP and spits out the single working stream URL for your country, cutting the 30-second search loop to zero. India viewers land on Star Sports 1 HD at 9 a.m. IST, 7 June, while UK watchers get the same feed on Sky Cricket 404; both carry the identical 1080p/50fps HLS stream with English, Hindi and Afrikaans audio tracks. If you sit outside the licensed belt, grab the US $4.99 ICC.tv day-pass–payment via Apple Pay or UPI resolves in 12 s and unlocks the adaptive-bitrate feed plus the Hawk-Eye overlay that TV doesn’t show.
Confirmed XIs for 7 June, 09:00 BST, The Oval:
- India: Rohit Sharma (c), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Shubman Gill, KL Rahul (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami.
- South Africa: Temba Bavuma (c), Aiden Markram, Tony de Zorzi, David Bedingham, Kyle Verreynne (wk), Marco Jansen, Gerald Coetzee, Keshav Maharaj, Simon Harmer, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi.
Reserve players–Rinku Singh and Matthew Breetzke–carry drinks and stay match-ready with full Dugout-Tracker access on the ICC app.
Need a free, legal fallback? SABC in South Africa and Channel 5 in Australia both stream on YouTube without login; latency sits at 28 s versus 8 s on the paid feeds. Pop the YouTube link into VLC → Playback Speed 1.05× and you shave the lag to 15 s, keeping the chat window open on the right for ball-by-ball emojis. One last hack: if your office firewall blocks video, switch to the ICC 128 kbps audio-only stream–data burn is 58 MB per session and commentary comes from the world-feed box, same as TV.
Playing XI release deadline and last-minute injury updates
Mark your calendar: squads must be lodged with the match referee by 10:00 a.m. local on the eve of the final, 6 June. After that, any change demands written approval from the ICC event technical committee, a process that can take up to three hours–time you do not have on the morning of a World Test Championship decider.
India have already flexed their 15 to 13, trimming K. Yadav and Prasidh Krishna after Tuesday fitness tests at The Oval. Australia will not thin their touring party until the final net session on Friday, giving Josh Inglis (bruised thumb) and Cameron Green (stiff adductor) one last chance to prove readiness. If either fails a 9 a.m. sprint drill, selectors will swap in Alex Carey or drop to a four-man pace cartel.
Keep an eye on New Zealand social feed at 11:30 a.m. UK–Kane Williamson cheeky hamstring twinge on Monday means the Black Caps may yet request a like-for-like swap with Rachin Ravindra. The ICC allows such moves only if the replacement is already inside the original 15; they rejected a similar plea from Pakistan in 2021, so paperwork must be bullet-proof.
Broadcasters receive the embargoed list at 11:45 a.m.; it leaks online by noon. Refresh ESPNcricinfo "Test Championship" tag or Sky Sports’ Twitter list @FollowTheAshes for the first photos of the team sheet–those JPEGs usually surface 7–8 minutes before the official PDF.
If you track analytics, monitor CricViz win-probability model; it flips by ±6 % when a frontline quick is ruled out. Last year Pat Cummins’ late scratch shifted odds from 53 % to 45 % in Australia favour before a ball was bowled, a swing worth roughly US$1.2 m in live betting markets.
Need a deeper read on how franchises now treat sports science? https://arroznegro.club/articles/giants-hire-sam-rosengarten-as-director-of-high-performance-add-5-fo-and-more.html shows the same GPS-tracking and force-plate protocols Australia medical staff used to clear Mitchell Starc heel niggle this week.
Final tip: set two push alerts–one for the ICC media WhatsApp, one for Cricbuzz injury tracker. When the clock hits 10:02 a.m. and no announcement drops, history says a surprise omission is coming; 82 % of silent windows since 2018 ended with an eleventh-hour swap. Have your fantasy teams ready to shuffle.
Star batters with most runs in the 2023-25 cycle to watch
Stream the final with your eyes locked on Joe Root–his 1 842 runs at 64,08 set the pace for England, and his 8 hundreds included back-to-back 190-plus epics against India and Australia that dragged the hosts over the line in both series. If you want a live bet, back him to farm the middle session on day two; since 2023 he scores at 4,7 per over between overs 41-80 while everyone else dips below 3,4.
Keep an eye on Yashasvi Jaiswal (1 573 runs, 67,52) and Kane Williamson (1 361 runs, 97,21). Jaiswal 214 in Visakhapatnam arrived inside 262 balls, the fastest double-ton of the cycle, and he punishes anything drifting onto the stumps at 92 mph-plus. Williamson, fresh from a 156-ball 161 in Christchurch, manipulates the field with 47 % of his runs in twos and threes–set your fantasy multiplier for overs 30-60 when the ball is 50 overs old and the outfield quickens.
Q&A:
When exactly will the 2025 World Test Championship final start, and how many days are scheduled?
The match is set to begin on 11 June 2025 at Lord, London. The five-day window runs through 15 June, with 27 June held in reserve as a sixth day if weather forces extensions. Play each day starts at 10:30 BST, lunch is 12:30-13:10, tea 15:40-16:00, and stumps 18:00 or when the scheduled overs are bowled.
Which two teams have qualified, and how did they earn their spots?
India topped the 2023-25 league table with 68,6 % of available points; Australia finished second on 64,2 %. Those percentages, calculated from wins, draws and bonus points across 24 months of series, locked them in ahead of South Africa (60,9 %) and England (58,4 %). No further playoff is needed the table after the last league series in March 2025 is final.
Is the final a single game or a best-of-three, and what happens if it is a draw?
It is a one-off match. If the scores are level after five days (or six if reserved day is used), the title is shared; no Super Over or replay is planned. The Mace is engraved with both countries’ names in that event, and prize money is split equally.
Where can viewers in the United States watch live, and is there a free option?
Willow TV holds the U.S. rights and will carry every ball live on its cable channel and streaming app (subscription required). Hotstar subscribers can also stream through the Disney Bundle. Free radio commentary is available worldwide on BBC Test Match Special via the BBC Sounds app; video highlights are posted within 30 minutes on the ICC YouTube channel.
How many points are needed to win the championship, and does the final have a separate points system?
The final itself has no points; it is decided outright: the side with the higher total after two innings wins. If time is lost, the match referee may reduce overs, but the objective remains simple score more runs and take 20 wickets faster than the opponent.
Which two squads have locked in their spots for the 2025 Test Championship final, and how did the points table look once the last series finished?
India and Australia booked their places. India topped the table with 68.5 percentage points after winning five of their six series, while Australia edged South Africa for second by a whisker 0.3 percentage point thanks to a 2–1 victory in the Boxing Day rubber that pushed them to 64.2.
I’ll be on a train during the final; will the ICC stream work on 4G, and do I need a paid account?
The ICC stream is free worldwide and adaptive: it drops to 240p on slower connections, so 4G is fine. Just open the ICC site or app, tap "Final" and you’re in no login, no card.
Reviews
ZaraSky
My calendar lone red circle hides 10–14 June. I booked a basement screen, blackout curtains, and three different stream backups because fibre wobbles when storms crawl over Glasgow. New Zealand late-order wagons against India tweakers feels like 2021 re-read, only this time Rachin wrists look stronger on short balls and Gill back-foot drives seem earlier. I’ll mute the group chat, pour Assam into the small porcelain cup, and keep a notebook for every leave outside off those quiet choices decide maces more than sixes. If the Kiwi openers survive the first ten with the Dukes still shiny, my heart will drum loud enough to scare the neighbour cat.
Aurora
Darling scribe, I clutched my cocoa when you swore the final would stream "everywhere" yet my telly snarls "geo-blocked" and my cousin goat ate the neighbourhood fibre cable. Which sacrificial decoder, precisely, persuades the ICC gods to beam the signal into a Kent cottage whose tallest antenna is a wire coat-hanger currently supporting last week bras?
LilyWave
While my soufflé deflated, these chaps chase a ball round Surrey till it rains. Husband swears it tactics; I spy grass-stained millionaires auditioning for laundry soap. Stream? I’ll peek between oven mitts if the Wi-Fi survives my bread rise.
Dominic
Your mum toaster has more tactical nuance than these spoon-fed show-ponies masquerading as elite batters, and the only thing flatter than their footwork is the commentary crew collective IQ, which hovers somewhere between damp cardboard and the mouldy biscuit tin my grandad keeps nails in. I’ve seen better timing from a broken cuckoo clock, more grit from overcooked porridge, and deeper concentration in a goldfish on TikTok. They mince to the crease like pampered poodles, waggle those £300 twigs as though shooing flies off a cowpat, then gift their wickets with the casual arrogance of a trust-fund brat tossing change at a busker. Meanwhile the broadcast drones on about legacy, destiny, history, serving the same reheated word-soup ad nauseam while the camera lingers on some dough-faced cheerleader waving a corporate flag stitched by underpaid kids. You’d find sharper field placements in a primary-school rounders match, and the only swing happening is in the overpriced bars where suits swill flat lager and pretend this slow-motion car crash is sport. Save the airfare, stay home, watch paint cure; it offers stiffer competition, richer narrative, and won’t charge a kidney for the privilege of witnessing grown men plod about like lost tourists in designer pyjamas.
Sophia Carter
Right, so the calendar finally coughed up a free weekend and I’m meant to glue myself to a screen for five days of white-clad cardio? Cute. Still, the idea of two sides slogging it out until someone remembers how to take ten wickets feels like the perfect excuse to open a bottle that costs more than my first car and ignore every "urgent" email. If the rain stays away and the umpires don’t blink at the light, we might even witness a finish that justifies the sleepless nights. Streaming from the couch in holey leggings, coffee swapped for something fizzy yes, please. May your favourite opener survive longer than my last situationship and may the review button break in your team favour at least once.
Caleb Mercer
Mate, if the Final in June, why my couch already charging me a "warm-up" subscription for March did the calendar elope with the broadcast rights?
Isabella Bennett
June sun on cracked tarmac smells like burnt plastic; I sit with a pass that cost two rent cheques, watching boys chase a silver cup they’ll dent within an hour. Same anthem, same canned applause, same men in headsets trading players like playing cards. Somewhere a mother on a rationed data pack refreshes the score, praying her son last wicket doesn’t vanish behind pop-up ads. They promise drama; I see inventory.