Sri Lanka must win 'away' Test matches

A comprehensive 3-0 victory against Zimbabwe at home has not helped Sri Lanka climb in the Rediff ratings for Test cricket. They still remain sixth in the rankings. Zimbabwe too remain at the bottom; and because of their loss to Sri Lanka they drop by another one point in the RBI index.

We've said it before: it must seem cruel that, after winning eight Test matches in a row, Sri Lanka are still getting nowhere. But let's see who they have defeated: India (1 win), West Indies and Zimbabwe (3 wins each) and Bangladesh (1). We don't count Bangladesh, but still these are wins against the bottom three Test playing countries at home.

Sri Lanka will rise rapidly if they win 'away' Test matches.

We provide, below, the updated version of Table A as on January 17, 2002.
-- How the rankings work...

TABLE A: Test Score Card (as on January 17, 2002)

		A W A Y
		Aus	Eng	Ind	NZ	Pak	RSA	SL	WI	Zim
H O M E	Australia		4 / 5 3.5 / 5	1 / 3 3 / 3	3 / 3 1.5 / 3	2 / 3 3 / 3	2 / 3 3 / 3	1 / 3 3 / 3	2 / 4 5 / 5	1 / 1 -
	England	1.5 / 5 1 / 5		1 / 3 2 / 3	2.5 / 3 1.5 / 4	2 / 3 1 / 2	2 / 5 3 / 5	2 / 3 0 / 1	2 / 6 3.5 / 5	1 / 2 1.5 / 2
	India	0 / 3 2 / 3	1 / 3 2 / 3		1 / 3 2 / 3	2 / 4 1 / 3	0.5 / 2 0 / 2	1 / 3 1.5 / 3	2 / 5 1.5 / 3	1 / 2 1.5 / 2
	New Zealand	1.5 / 3 0 / 3	2.5 / 4 0.5 / 3	1 / 3 2 / 3		1 / 2 1.5 / 3	0.5 / 3 1 / 3	1 / 3 2 / 2	0.5 / 2 2 / 2	2 / 2 0.5 / 1
	Pakistan	0 / 3 1 / 3	1 / 2 1 / 3	2 / 3 2 / 4	1.5 / 3 1 / 2		1 / 2 1 / 3	2.5 / 3 1 / 3	1 / 3 3 / 3	1.5 / 2 1 / 3
	South Africa	0 / 3 1 / 3	2 / 5 3 / 5	2 / 2 1.5 / 2	2 / 3 2.5 / 3	2 / 3 1 / 2		1.5 / 3 2.5 / 3	3 / 5 5 / 5	1 / 1 2 / 2
	Sri Lanka	0 / 3 2 / 3	1 / 1 1 / 3	1.5 / 3 2 / 3	0 / 2 2 / 3	2 / 3 0.5 / 3	0.5 / 3 1.5 / 3		0.5 / 2 3 / 3	2 / 3 3 / 3
	West Indies	0 / 5 2 / 4	1.5 / 5 4 / 6	1.5 / 3 3 / 5	0 / 2 1.5 / 2	0 / 3 2 / 3	0 / 5 2 / 5	0 / 3 1.5 / 2		1.5 / 2 2 / 2
	Zimbabwe	- 0 / 1	0.5 / 2 1 / 2	0.5 / 2 1 / 2	0.5 / 1 0 / 2	2 / 3 0.5 / 2	0 / 2 0 / 1	0 / 3 1 / 3	0 / 2 0.5 / 2

The corresponding ranking table, Table F, appears below.

TABLE F: Final Rankings (as on January 17, 2002)

Country	Performance index (RBI)	Rank	Difference 11.01.02 to 17.1.02
Australia	74.13	1	+0.08
South Africa	56.91	2	-0.04
England	47.38	3	+0.03
Pakistan	42.87	4	+0.13
New Zealand	42.51	5	+0.04
Sri Lanka	41.93	6	+0.07
India	39.34	7	-0.03
West Indies	34.63	8	-0.12
Zimbabwe	20.42	9	-0.75

Before ending, let us take a quick look at Sri Lanka's prospects in 2002. A quick look at the year's calendar on Cricinfo indicates that Sri Lanka aren't playing too many more Tests this year. In fact we only find three Tests against England in England listed for May-Jun 2002. This will be a terrible time to tour England. The batsman will find batting conditions difficult and Muralitharan too won't enjoy bowling in the first half of the English cricket season.

Should Sri Lanka do well in these adverse conditions, they will climb dramatically (perhaps up to the fourth place). But if their performance is just average, they could find themselves stuck at the sixth position for quite a long time.

.. Unless Sri Lanka become an 'indirect' beneficiary of a very good England performance against New Zealand in New Zealand. If England win handsomely, the could push New Zealand down to the sixth place. Indeed a handsome English performance could even see England challenging South Africa for the second place -- especially if South Africa again lose to Australia at home!

So there's real excitement ahead of us in the Rediff Test cricket ratings in the months to come! Readers will have the opportunity to check out different scenarios when we introduce the "interactive" software for the Rediff Test cricket in February 2002.

The Rediff Test cricket ratings will soon become "interactive"; cricket fans will be able to enter different combinations of points for home and away matches and see how the ratings change. Computer programs for this interactive service are being developed by Siba Prasad Satapathy and Manoj Kumar Choudhury of NAL in association with the Rediff team.

Back to top